The role of data in Africa’s energy transition –White paper
By
Nicolette Pombo-van Zyl
Where do you get the data to accelerate Africa’s energy transition? Data is needed about how best to exploit available resources, where to develop new renewable plants, how to fund them, and how to operate and maintain them to provide the sustainable, reliable power that economic growth requires.
Energy transition, however, is a phased process, with progress at each stage linked to important, complex decisions. When integrating renewables into the generation mix, those decisions are invariably influenced by the weather.
Understanding how the weather might behave and how uncertainty impacts renewable generation is a key part of almost all decisions about renewable energy. This is even more significant when considering different climate pathways and how weather changes might impact generation capacity and network risks in different regions.
Data driving Africa’s energy transition at all levels
Funding is another critical factor. Organisations across Africa are looking to development banks, governments, NGOs and private sector investors to secure financing at scale to support their energy transition objectives. But the need to de-risk climate investments and incentivise funding from institutional investors demands informed insight and persuasive, data-driven modelling. Structural market issues such as tariff reform, energy storage and the relative percentage of renewable generation capacity all require effective scenario planning to inform business plans and investment bids.
The Institute for Environmental Analytics is developing innovative tools to inform and support strategic planning and operational decision-making for the transition to clean energy across Africa. A forthcoming white paper will examine the challenges inherent in Africa’s energy transition and explore how new developments in data-driven energy modelling can help plan effective strategies. Focus technologies will include EnergyMetric, a SaaS-based modelling platform to evaluate future renewable energy scenarios’ generation potential and financial performance, and an innovative approach to economic dispatch modelling to better capture weather-related uncertainty.
Source: ESI Africa
