1st Africa Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 27-29 March 2014, Durban, South Africa
LESSONS LEARNT FROM THE AFRETEP FOR THE AFRICAN PV SECTOR DEVELOPMENT Szabó, S a*; Bódis K. a; Huld, T.a Pinedo-Pascua, I..a ; Jäger-Waldau A. a; Renewable Energy Unit, Institute for Energy and Transport, DG JRC European Commission Via E. Fermi 2749, 21027 Ispra (VA), Italy *Phone: 0039 0332 783746; email:
[email protected]
a
ABSTRACT: The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission JRC has developed the African Renewable Energy Technology Platform AFRETEP platform with 760+ African and European members, cooperating institutions for research. As a part of the project the JRC has provided training to nearly a hundred African academics in regional trainings on the state-of-art rural electrification technologies; these can also be followed online in web-streaming. The project has developed mapping applications and methods to support national governments and agencies to decide which energy technology options would better deliver their goals of rural electrification and made these available to the continents scientific communities in publications. The methods -developed by the JRC platform- take into account the diversity of energy resources, coupled with the existing grid, transport infrastructure, hydropower resources, the current diesel and photovoltaic costs, to map the current least-cost electricity options for rural electrification. So far, geographical datasets have been made publicly available (www.afretep.net) and several published papers and conferences have facilitated the spread of the results to the interested stakeholders. Most of these results are available on the Platform and the JRC websites. Keywords: renewable energy technologies, off grid systems, rural electrification, Africa.
The platform developed mapping applications and methods to support national governments and agencies to decide which energy technology options would better deliver their goals of rural electrification, and made these available to the scientific community through publications in peer-reviewed journals and communications at conferences. The methods -developed by the JRC platform- take into account the diversity of energy resources, coupled with the existing grid, transport infrastructure, hydropower resources, the current diesel and photovoltaic costs, to map the current least-cost electricity options for rural electrification. So far, geographical datasets have been made publicly available (www.afretep.net) and several published papers and conferences have facilitated the spread of the results to the interested stakeholders. Most of these results are available on the Platform and the JRC websites.
Figure 1: Thematic areas where the JRC has provided scientific support for various African projects.
NETWORK AND CAPACITY ACTIVITIES OF AFRETEP
The following figure gives insight AFRETEP network has been built up.
121
how the
National ag. for dev.
Not African
Consultanc y
International organization
Within the framework of the project JRC has developed a platform with 760+ African and European members, cooperating institutions for research. The JRC provided training to nearly a hundred African academics in regional trainings on the state-of-art rural electrification technologies (that can also be followed on web-streaming).
Non G ov ernmental
EducationUnivers ity
• Data collection on African RES potential • Decision making support tools for national RE policies • Dissemination
140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0
National ministry
Number
African
Private sector
The objective of AFRETEP has been to build a network of African research institutions specialised renewable energy to allow networking both among them, and to interact with other institutions worldwide. The project is been divided into the following tasks:
BUILDING
Regional-local authority
2
O ther
1.1 AFRETEP stands for: AFrican Renewable Energy TEchnology Platform. The JRC has been actively working on various research areas for Africa. These are summarised in the following figure.
European Commission
INTRODUCTION
Researc h institute
1
1st Africa Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 27-29 March 2014, Durban, South Africa
Af rican (Tot 311)
Table I: Feedback on the most needed project theme from the 97 participants
Not African (Tot 199)
50 40
Pref er-ence
30 20
1
Topic Mini-hydro
10
2
Feb-12
Nov-11
Aug-11
May-11
Feb-11
Nov-10
Aug-10
May-10
Feb-10
Nov-09
0 Aug-09
Number of subscriptions per month
All (Tot 510)
3
Figure 2: AFRETEP subscription trends
members
distribution
and
Within the capacity building activities, AFRETEP project has organised a series of 3 regional workshops, inviting 96 participants from 30 African countries. While the three workshops have had in common the exchange of expertise and experience with and within African Research Centers, the focus of each one was harmonised and decided together with the host region, seeking the best fit between the training and expertise we can provide with their needs and interest. Following this approach, the list of the regional workshops along with their topics are as follows: 1. AFRETEP 1st Regional Workshop: East Africa. It took place in Kampala, Uganda, from 3rd to 7th October 2011 with the support of Centre of Research in Energy and Energy Conservation of the Makerere University. Regional topics: Social-economic aspects, Mini Hydro projects and Photovoltaic technology and mapping. 2. AFRETEP 2nd Regional Workshop: West Africa. It took place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, from 7th-11th November 2011 with the support of Foundation 2iE. Regional topics: Biomass and Photovoltaic technology and mapping. 3. AFRETEP 3rd Regional Workshop: Southern Africa. It took place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 20th -24th February 2012 with the support of the Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town. Regional topics: financial schemes, photovoltaic technologymapping and poverty reduction through rural electrification The most active AFRETEP members are the ones that participated in the workshops. It is an important outcome to see the country origin of the most successful candidates came from in the renewable energy domain.
4
Wind-energy
5
Geothermal
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
3
Solar irradiation evaluation Evaluation of the impact on population of RE study
Feed in tariff Solar system RE technology transfer Rural electrification policy PV panel Energy financial tools PV/Diesel hybrid system Green energy cost
Need/ suggestion Design, manufacturing, capacity assessment Meteorological units installation
Design and training Design and training
Design
Design and training Testing Design and training Training on how structure them
AFRETEP DATA COLLECTION & ANALYTICAL WORK
3.1 Data collection on African RES potential In this section, the final datasets are described together with information about sources and operations applied. The resulting databases, processed layers and the exact references can be found on the AFRETEP website. 3.1.1 Administrative areas The geo-referenced data set of administrative units of the Map Library project (Map Maker Trust, Scotland) forms an essential component in the development of our model. The entire African data set has been reviewed and updated to reflect the boundaries as per Jan 2007. The boundary status and administrative names have been verified against various sources of information [Map Library, 2007]. The actual polygon set has become an amalgamation of other datasets available in the public domain. 3.1.2 Population The "Gridded Population of the World: Future Estimates" [CIESIN, FAO, CIAT] data containing UNadjusted population counts and density grids in Arc/Info GRID format provided the main source for population estimations. The raster data are at 2.5 arc-minutes (~ 4650 m) resolution population densities and population counts in 2005, adjusted to match UN totals. The source data are stored in geographic coordinates of decimal degrees based on the World Geodetic System spheroid of 1984 (WGS84) and have been projected (ETRS Lambert 18,0) and resampled (1000 m) representing the estimated number of population in each cell in 1 km resolution. 3.1.3 Populated places Locality and name of point objects (e.g. populated places, administrative centres, churches, schools, military bases) were available from the Map Library data set without population information. The layer of cities from
Figure 3: AFRETEP workshop participants
122
1st Africa Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 27-29 March 2014, Durban, South Africa
scale applications had been involved into the study; HydroSHEDS is based on high-resolution elevation data SRTM data . The consistent product of HydroSHEDS project offers a suite of geo-referenced data sets (vector and raster) at various scales, including river networks, watershed boundaries, drainage directions, and flow accumulations. The applied resolution was 3 arc-seconds (approx. 90 meters at the equator). The source data depicted all linear downflow as 'river course' where the upstream catchment area was more than 1000 cells (approximately 8 km2 at the equator). During our GIS processing and analysis the real size of the watersheds had been calculated in square kilometers based on the geographical location (latitude) of cells belonging to each basin. The metadata of gauging stations (catchment size and mean annual discharge) from the Global Runoff Database at Global Runoff Data Centre was applied as control data. Based on the description of almost 8000 stations globally and the mentioned river data, river segments fulfilling the following criteria had been selected as potential locations of mini hydro-systems:
ESRI data set [ESRI, 2006] with classes of estimated population has been processed additionally. The human settlements database provided by CIESIN, Columbia University is the source of the map of African cities and towns with populations of 1,000 or more. The Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1) project resulted the above described gridded population data too. 3.1.4 Travel time to major cities: A global map of accessibility The accessibility is defined as the travel time to a location of interest using land (road/off road) or water (navigable river, lake and ocean) based travel. This accessibility is computed using a cost-distance algorithm which computes the "cost" of travelling between two locations on a regular raster grid. Generally this cost is measured in units of time and a raster grid representing the cost is often termed a friction-surface. The frictionsurface contains information on the transport network and environmental and political factors that affect travel times between locations [3]. The source data are in geographic projection with resolution of 30 arc seconds. The format is integer Arc/Info GRID format with pixel values representing minutes of travel time [Nelson, 2008 ].
- permanent river (info: VMAP0) - river gradient or surface gradient along the river > 1 % (derived from SRTM30) - catchment size > 100 km2 (calculation based on HydroSHEDS) - mean annual stream flow > 4 m3/s (GRDC)
3.1.5 Digital Elevation Model The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) obtained elevation data on a near-global scale (between N60 and S57 degree) to generate the most complete highresolution digital topographic database of Earth. The project was a joint endeavour of NASA, the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the German and Italian Space Agencies, and flew in February 2000. It used dual radar antennas to acquire interferometric radar data (IFSAR), processed to digital topographic data at 1 arc-sec resolution [Farr et al., 2007 ]. According to the NASA-NGA agreement on data distribution the SRTM data has been released in 3 arc-sec (~90 m) resolution for areas outside the United States and full resolution 1 arc-sec (~30 m) for the area of the United States. The SRTM data as a public topographic database may be obtained through the Internet. Besides the elevation data the appropriate documentation and references are also available. The "highest quality SRTM data set" is available from the website of the Consortium for Spatial Information (CGIAR-CSI) . The SRTM data was processed (projected and resampled ETRS Lambert 18,0 - 500 m, 1000 m) and applied for terrain modelling (estimated mean gradient).
The processed GIS data were further analyzed calculation the costs of system installation. 3.1.7 Land Cover The Global Land Cover 2000 (GLC2000 ) database [GEM, 2003 ] has been chosen to model the land cover. The general objective of the GLC2000 was to provide a harmonized land cover database covering the whole globe for the year 2000 to the International Convention on Climate Change, the Convention to Combat Desertification, the Ramsar Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. The GLC2000 product and documentation are available from the website of the producer Global Environment Monitoring Unit (GEM ) of the European Commission, Joint Research Centre [GEM, 2003]. The GLC2000 project used the FAO Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) which differs from the classes applied in CORINE. The source data is defined by geographic coordinates (Lat/Lon, WGS84). The spatial resolution is ~1km at the Equator (0.00833 decimal degrees). The source data was projected and resampled into the common reference system (ETRS Lambert 18,0 - 1000 m).
3.1.6 River network The African coverage of two global flow and river network databases has been processed and analysed in the study on pico- and mini-hydro energy resources. The 1:1 million Vector Map (VMap0 ) Inland Water and Water Course data layers for Africa provided the basic geographic information on different water bodies (polygons and polylines). The stored hydrographic description of features (Perennial/Permanent, NonPerennial/ Intermittent/ Fluctuating) formed the basis of first delineation of river segments potentially appropriate for electricity production using pico- and mini-hydro systems. Considering the characteristics and technical limitations of the VMAP0 data an additional hydrographic dataset designed for continental and global-
3.2 Impacts and further developments All the above mentioned datasets are available for downloading at the www.afretep.net website in ESRI Shape vector format (administrative boundaries, populated places, transmission lines) or as ASCII GRID in 1 km resolution, depending on the nature of the data. The spatial reference system of the processed data, as explained, is the "ETRS Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area". Apart from the GIS processed data, maps have been published for almost each GIS layer in PNG format (the size varies, but usually not more than 200KB) which can be easily included in presentations and Internet-based publications.
123
1st Africa Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 27-29 March 2014, Durban, South Africa
Regarding the solar resource the African solar radiation map has already been generated at the JRC (PVGIS Renewable Energies Unit, Institute for Energy and Transport, JRC Ispra). Based on the datatsets described above a comprehensive methodology was executed for mapping rural electrification options cost competiveness. The following article has been completed, the results have been peer reviewed and published in the high impact factor open access journal Environmental Research Letters (please refer to for free download http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/3/034002). Its high impact is shown by the google metrics which shows that after publication more than 10000 readers chose to download the article for their purposes.
researchers to carry out their own scenario using different assumptions. It should be also noted that these maps and datasets match the tasks’ goal foreseen within this activity in the Inception Report. Even though there is a lack of energy related information in Africa, efforts in gathering, validating and harmonizing energy related databases allowed JRC to put in place a model (first results published in [1]), able to compare different options and to identify RE options in rural electrification. The model is based in the calculation of the levelized cost of electricity (€/kWh) of several rural electrification options for the African continent. This calculation is based in the combination of renewable energy resources information, population, fuel prices, travel distances, etc. using a simple cash flow model. After a year, the data used in the model has changed significantly, with high impact in the final competitiveness of the assessed technologies. The estimated cost of electricity delivered by off-grid PV systems was recalculated with updated prices (PV module cost was assumed as 1100€/kWp). The rest of the technologies were re-assessed using latest data available. In the model calculations the following methodological steps were followed:
3.3 Criteria establishment for the selection of grid extension vs. off-grid solutions High quality renewable energy resource geographical information in Africa was systematically gathered and was used as input in the development of a spatial electricity cost model for Africa, with the goal of pointing out whether diesel generators, photovoltaic systems or extension of the grid were the least-cost option in off-grid areas. The results were communicated in reports and papers. The information is made available on solar, wind, hydro, biomass and geothermal resources. They have been collected & evaluated in collaboration with all network partners. Three technologies were chosen to calculate their economical viability at a continental level as potential options for rural electrification: (i) photovoltaic systems, (ii) diesel generators and (iii) extension of the already existing electricity grid. The decision on which technologies include in the model was driven by the certainty and availability of required geographical data. Currently, other technologies are being modelled: a paper focused on a case study about rural electrification based in minihydro is in progress. The results will be submitted to a peer-review journal. Through a combination of the required renewable energy resource information, geographical information, fuel prices and travel distances, we were able to map the economical potential of different technology options for rural electrification at the continental level which were later on compared using a simple cash flow model. This model allowed us to show in a geographically explicit way how much the electricity would cost for each minigrid option at each location. The results offer support to decide in which regions the communities could be electrified either within the grid or in an isolated minigrid. Donor programs and National Rural Electrification Agencies (or equivalent governmental departments) could use this type of delineation for their program boundaries and then could use the local optimization tools adapted to the prevailing conditions. Several maps were produced during the development of the model. Most of them are accessible through the AFRETEP website in order to enable interested
• Socio-economic data integration. • Mapping the economic potential of different energy-generating technology options for rural electrification at continental level based on the evaluation of existing electricity network in a combination of renewable energy resource information, geographical information, fuel prices and travel distances. • Mapping the PV and diesel generator sets electricity production cost for off-grid systems at continental level. • Approximating the boundaries of grid extension: mapping the off-grid potential for rural electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa. • Mapping decentralized options for rural electrification in Africa, off-grid options: economic comparison of diesel versus PV. • Mapping geographical distribution of technologies with estimated electricity costs at continental level, development of a country/regionspecific, cost-sensitive model. • Mapping the geographical location and approximating the number of potential rural population (populated places, critical density of population) served by different energy service options considering different cost ceiling thresholds per kWh. The primary use of the model showed in a geographically explicit way the direct effects of the fossil fuel subsidies on the competitiveness of the different distributed technologies (diesel generator set and PV minigrid) as well at the advantage of the PV system as their costs have constantly decreased during the last 5 years. Figure 4 shows this process in a very striking sequence for the years 2008/10/12 [2, 4].
124
1st Africa Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 27-29 March 2014, Durban, South Africa
Figure 4a/b: The changing competitiveness of the diesel generator set, PV minigrid, the mini hydro and the potential grid extension between 2008/10/12 [2] 3.4 Decision making support tools for national RE policies Within the framework of AFRETEP, a GIS-based online tool RE2nAF was developed for supporting decision making both for RE policy makers and business developers. With this tool, the user can perform geographically based analysis using the geodata included within the tool (supply and demand side). This tool is completely web based, so no specialized software or downloads will be required. The tool link is http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/re2naf.html Description and characteristics:
Figure 5: The RE2nAF web GIS tool interface page 3.5 Dissemination In enhancing the AFRETEP platform, the JRC has chosen strategic partners, such as ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE), IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency), ERRA (European Regulators Regional Association), AREA (African Renewable Energy Alliance), SANSA (South African National Space Agency). The cooperation with ECREEE facilitates the development of common tools (country specific maps with renewable energy based electricity costs) and the validation of results. This collaborative research arrangement focuses on the following objectives:
• from the user point of view: interactive easy-touse tool that would make data/analytical functions accessible through the web with no need of further installations. Implementing the option of downloading data will be evaluated. • from the provider point of view (IET, AFRETEP staff): based on open source technologies. A geographically based information has been integrated; and navigation functions are already available. Components: • Web page, hosted by JRC and respecting JRC visual identity regulations. Proper credit is given to data providers and collaborators.
125
1st Africa Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 27-29 March 2014, Durban, South Africa
electrification of Africa. The JRC carried out geoeconomic analysis which identified the least-cost rural electrification options for sub-Saharan Africa. For each geographical location, it calculated for each km2 pixel, the lowest cost options for electricity generation via mini hydropower, off-grid photovoltaic (PV) solar panels and diesel generators and then they are compared to the costs for an extension of the electricity grid. Calculations show that in 2012 PV was the cheapest electricity source for one third of the overall African population. The resulting mapping application offers support to decide in which regions the communities could be electrified either within the grid or in an isolated mini-grid. Despite the good solar resource, why is not yet done? The AFTRETEP platform works and analysis shows that in the renewable energy technology projects' design COST EFFECTIVENESS is determined by the following factors as well:
- Set the basis for a continuous exchange of data and methodologies between JRC and ECREEE on renewable energy potential assessment in the West African region, - Further elaboration (accuracy) of Renewable energy (RE) resources assessment (mainly Global Horizontal Insolation (GHI), Direct Normal Insolation (DNI), wind speed, small hydro, biomass) taking into consideration the currently available assessments - Further elaboration/country specific maps with RE based electricity. - Promote the results of the cooperation among international community, supporting "Sustainable Energy for All" initiative In the Collaboration with IRENA the JRC provides thematic maps, metadata updates of new layers. In the IRENA Global Atlas for Renewable Energy and their GeoCataloge the JRC focuses on to move the agenda forward from resource mapping to economic potentials.
• • • • • •
are equally important. Outlook for the PV sector: AFRETEP analysis shows that in most African countries PV is already competitive, to make it happen further work is needed from both the governmental and private sector (project developers, industry, wholesale and retail sector) on putting in place the above mentioned factors in the regulatory/business environment. The JRC and the AFRETEP platform with its network, capacity building experiences, its mapping applications and tools can help both these sectors in this.
Figure 6 The JRC has contributed ERRA trainings for energy regulators attended by a number of developing, African and Near-East energy regulation offices. AREA has been the connection between the European PVSEC and the active African partners from its initiation.
4
Strong capacity building requirements Socio economic conditions Subsidy for the fossil fuels (diesel), distance from the grid, regulation in place, and the reinforcement of regulation
5
REFERENCES
[1] S. Szabó, K. Bódis, T. Huld, and M. Moner-Girona, “Energy solutions in rural Africa: mapping electrification costs of distributed solar and diesel generation versus grid extension,” Environ. Res. Lett., vol. 6, no. 3, p. 34002, 2011. [2] S. Szabó, K. Bódis, T. Huld, and M. Moner-Girona, “Sustainable energy planning: Leapfrogging the energy poverty gap in Africa,” Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev., vol. 28, pp. 500–509, Dec. 2013. [3] A. Nelson, “Travel time to major cities: A global map of Accessibility,” JRC, Eur. Comm., 2008. http://bioval.jrc.ec.europa.eu/products/gam/descriptio n.htm [4] GIZ, “International fuel prices.” [Online]. Available: http://www.giz.de/fuelprices.
CONCLUSIONS
With the network and the studies the JRC aims to support sustainable energy planning for rural electrification in Africa. The project developed a consolidated technical and socio-economic base for assessing rural electrification projects, defining the criteria to be used in the evaluation of grid extension vs. off-grid solutions. The JRC participates as the research focal point for the European research stakeholder group in the Africa EU Energy Partnership (AEEP). It is one of the most important partnerships which drives the EU-Africa external relations in the energy domain. In the framework of AEEP a successful Forum was organised in South Africa which involved the private sector, civil society and research. The JRC was a focal port of this process. In its latest communication AEEP recommends to continue to implement the conductive reforms on policy and regulatory frameworks in Africa in order to provide an enabling environment and enhanced capacities for increased private sector investments. The analytical results of the AFRETEP show that the PV sector will provide the key technology for the
6
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the support and contribution given by the members of the AFRETEP platform.
126
