Study says renewable energy has robust future in Africa

• 7 years ago (2017-03-28)
• David Flin

Africa 303 Solar 246 Wind 239

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A study from the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has assessed the potential for large solar and wind farms in 21 countries in the southern and eastern African power pools. The region is predicted to see electricity demand triple by 2030. The Berkeley study maps out a viable strategy to develop wind and solar power while simultaneously reducing the continent’s reliance on fossil fuels and lowering power plant construction costs.

The study concluded that with the right strategy for placing solar and wind farms, and with international sharing of power, most African nations could lower the number of conventional power plants they need to build, reducing infrastructure costs by billions of dollars.

Duncan Callaway, Senior Author of the study and a UC Berkeley associate professor of energy and resources and a faculty scientist at Berkeley Laboratory, said that a few countries already share power, such as South Africa with Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but that more countries will need to broker the agreements and build the transmission lines to allow this. International transmission lines are being planned, but primarily to share hydropower resources located in a handful of countries. He said that these transmission plans need to incorporate sharing of wind and solar in order to help them be competitive generation technologies in Africa.