A cost-optimal and geospatial analysis for the power system of Sierra Leone
Abstract: In 2014, the electricity access in Sierra Leone was almost 13.1%, consisting of 42% in urban areas and 1% in rural areas. The high transmission and distribution losses in the national grid, the insufficient generation capacity, and regulatory constraints are also some of the country´s challenges in the power sector (SEforALL Africa Hub, 2018). Nevertheless, the government of Sierra Leone has set a target to increase the electrification rate to 92% in 2030 (SEforALL Africa Hub, 2018). This target could be achieved by exploiting the abundant sources of renewable energy in such as hydro and solar. The objective of this study is to analyze the investments in the power sector of Sierra Leone in order to cover the country´s future electricity needs considering national targets (electrification rate) and different tiers of electricity in the residential sector. The modelling tools, OnSSET,spatial electrification planning tool and OSeMOSYS, cost optimization for medium to long-run integrated assessment and energy planning tool are used for this thesis project. In order to achieve future electricity target, the modelling period of this study has been set to 2015- 2065. Under this study, three scenarios are analyzed, the reference, medium electricity demand, and high electricity demand for the period 2015-2065. In 2015, the consumption level was 578 kWh/household/year for the urban population and 73 kWh/household/ year for the rural population. The reference scenario considers Tier 3 (Global Tracking Framework, 2015) on electricity consumption for urban population and Tier 2 (Global Tracking Framework, 2015) for the rural population in 2065. The medium electricity demand scenario assumes slightly higher energy consumption (Tier 4 (Global Tracking Framework, 2015) for urban population and Tier 3 (Global Tracking Framework, 2015) for rural population) in 2065. Lastly, the high electricity demand scenario assumes the highest electricity demand (Tier 5 (Global Tracking Framework, 2015) for urban population and Tier 4 (Global Tracking Framework, 2015) for rural population) in 2065. This study shows that for Sierra Leone, in order to cover its electricity needs in the future as well as to be fully electrified, its power generation will mainly be based on hydro. In the Reference scenario, where both OnSSET and OSeMOSYS analysis were used, it is suggested that 28% of the total electricity produced is to be generated by solar PV and 60% by hydropower plant. This is due to the fact that OnSSET, as a spatial analysis tool, also takes into consideration the distance between available resource and demand, on top of resource availability. Meanwhile, in the medium and high electricity demand scenarios, where only OSeMOSYS analysis was conducted, hydropower plant shows a more dominant contribution than the reference scenario. Around 68% of total electricity produced for medium electricity demand scenario is from hydropower plant. In the high electricity demand scenario, besides high electricity production from hydro (79.5% of total electricity produced), production from other technology such as HFO and solar PV is more evenly spread, especially in 2065. Overall, it can still be deduced that hydro power plant is the most promising option for electricity generation in all scenarios. This is attributed mostly to its abundance as well as low production costs, such that even when the distance is considered, it is still reasonably more attractive than other options available.
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