The economics of renewable energy expansion in rural Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

A review on the recent progress made on solar photovoltaic in selected countries of sub-Saharan Africa

“…To obtain the best results from RE implementation, it is vital to recognize the correct type of technology for a particular country [11]. A number of factors such as efficiency of the RE, water or land requirements and the socio-economic impacts of the RE technology, are necessary for optimum RE output [12,13]. Solar energy has been recognized as one of the promising energy sources that can aid the future security of energy supply [14,15].…”

An integrated framework for rural electrification: Adopting a user-centric approach to business model development

“…First and foremost, the government decides on a sequential order for access to regional electrification. Deichmann et al (2011) argue in favour of an economical algorithm that focuses on lowest marginal cost per connection, which following World Bank (2008b) depends on household service level, total number of households at location, load density, load growth, load curve, productive loads, renewable resource availability, fuel costs, necessary supply reliability and long-term electrification planning (World Bank, 2008b). The Peruvian government on the contrary gives priority to those regions with the lowest incidence of electricity connectivity and highest poverty index (DGER, 2010) while Costa Rica and Thailand used other differentiators such as level of commercial development and infrastructure investments to prioritize regional access (Barnes and Foley, 2001).…”

“…For example, rural electrification is instrumental in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (Modi et al, 2005;Mustonen, 2010). Experience shows that on the social level, RE positively impacts: (a) the quality of lighting (World Bank, 2008c), (b) health by diminishing indoor exposure to particulate matter (Howells et al, 2005) and by extending clinic hours and strengthening the cold chain (ADB, 2010;World Bank, 2008c), (c) education outcomes, thanks to extended hours for study (ADB, 2010), (d) connectivity to the outside world via increased access to television, radio and mobile phones (Deichmann et al, 2011;Yadoo et al, 2011) and even (e) social status (Chaieb and Ounalli, 2001). In terms of its effects on the environment, RE's effect on deforestation -via wood as fuel for cooking -is contested (Balachandra, 2011;Lachman, 2011).…”

The politico-economics of electricity planning in developing countries: A case study of Ghana

“…In the next section we introduce the hierarchical lexicographic programming algorithm developed in this paper and discuss two of the existing cost effective algorithms. These are the algorithms proposed by Parshall et al (2009) and Deichmann et al (2011). We apply these three algorithms to Ghanaian data on un-electrified settlements in order to validate the new hierarchical lexicographic programming approach and to show how the cost and political economy implications of the different approaches compare.…”

“…For grid assigned settlements, they also determine optimal routing into the existing grid network. They include the algorithms by Lambert and Hittle (2000), Amador and Dominguez (2005), Parshall et al (2009), Deichmann et al (2011), and Levin and Thomas (2012).…”