GLOBAL ATLAS OF RENEWABLES ENERGIES: A COMPLEMENTARY TO AN OPTIMAL ELECTRIFICATION PLANNING METHOD AT SHORT AND LONG TERMS- CASE STUDY OF TOGO

Abstract

The complementarity of renewable energy resources required for optimal electrification planning is of scientific and, above all, technical interest, to electrify a given region at any given time. With the aim of achieving one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG7), universal access to electricity at the lowest possible cost, studies have been carried out on the issue of optimal electrification planning in general throughout the world, and in Togo in particular. The first step was to produce an Atlas of Togo, and the second was to plan its electrification taking into account the least-cost technological options, while considering environmental integrity, energy reliability and guaranteeing access to electricity in off-grid areas. The approach proposed in this paper is based on Onsset (Open Source Spatial Electrification Tool) combined with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Onsset is an open source python programming tool for optimal electrification planning. This approach takes into account the geographical, infrastructural and socio-economic characteristics of each region of the country. It can also be used to identify the various possible optimal models for electrification, especially in the choice of the most appropriate technologies according to available resources. The case of Togo is studied in this paper. Optimal electrification planning (different technologies such as grid extension, installation of isolated systems and/or microgrids...) is thus proposed, taking into account their costs (installation, production and operating costs...). Short-term (03 years and less) and long-term (15 years and more) studies for several scenarios (4) have been carried out. The results of these studies recommend, for low energy demands: in the case of rural areas (< 40 kWh/year per household) in the short term, stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) systems estimated at around 184 million USD with a production capacity of 20 MW. Finally, in the long term, we recommend stand-alone photovoltaic systems (USD 280 million with a production capacity of 62 MW), the strengthening of urban electrical resilience through grid extension systems (USD 964 million with a capacity of 274 MW), hydro mini-grid systems (USD 4 million with a production capacity of 1 MW) and PV-hybrid mini-grid systems (USD 1370 million with a production capacity of 0.72 GW).