Role of energy storage system in west african power plants

How can solar energy help the West African Power Pool?

For the West African Power Pool keen onincreasing electricity supply and reducing the current high electricity prices in the region, utilization of solar energy resources in combination with unexplored hydro resources provides an opportunity to achieve these goals.

What is the West Africa Energy Program?

The West Africa Energy Program run by US AID’s Power Africa division includes support for five solar projects which will provide about 150MW of electricity, including the Kodeni and Nagréongo solar plants in Burkina Faso and a 250MW solar / hydropower hybrid plant in Ghana.

Does integrating solar energy in a West African electricity network reduce load shedding?

For example, Gambia and Ghana increase their share of imports from 2% and 4% to 55% and 22% respectively. The results show that increasing integration of solar energy in a fully interconnected West African electricity network significantly meets growing demand,reduces load shedding and generation costs.

What is the main source of power in West Africa?

Hydroelectric power is the dominant source of power in the region and is the focus of most of the large schemes underway, although there are also plans to develop more gas-fired plants and some initiatives to develop coal-fired capacity. West African countries have now begun to develop utility-scale solar power.

Can smart management of hydropower plants support grid integration in West Africa?

We demonstrate that smart management of present and future hydropower plants in West Africa can support substantial grid integration of solar and wind power, limiting natural gas consumption while avoiding ecologically harmful hydropower overexploitation.

Does West African region have a high potential for solar energy?

Table 3. Generation capacities in baseline scenario.West African region has a high potential of solar energy for the installation of solar PV plants as indicated by the 10 km × 10 km resolution of Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI) data in Fig. 3 ( ECOWAS Observatory for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, 2017 ).