Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in the Framework of a Regional Climate Change Policy in West Africa The West Africa sub-region has abundant renewable energy (RE) resources which could be harnessed to provide sustainable domestic and industrial energy while at the same time, helping in the mitigation of climate change externalities. Nonetheless, the ECOWAS region is saddled with the challenges of energy access, energy security and climate change mitigation and adaptation, which are intertwined with the region’s economic challenges. The hugely identified potentials, geographically, are spread over the whole region; however, they are neither connected to each other physically nor having suitable policies to unlock them. The development and use of these identified RE and Energy Efficiency (EE) potentials are hindered by legal and economic obstacles, leading to persistent challenges of energy access, energy security and climate change mitigation in the region. The result is that, the ECOWAS region continues to face significant challenges in energy delivery: with more than half of its 344.7 million citizens living in the rural areas where access to electricity or the services it provides rang¬es between 6% and 8%. That is more than 175 million people with no access to improved nor reliable and affordable electricity services. To address these challenges simultaneously in order to shape the regional energy situation, urgent investments in sustainable energy infrastructure and services as well as pol¬icy frameworks in the ECOWAS member countries must be taken into account. There are certain schools of thought that describe renewable energy as ‘‘a doomed revolution’’ which has little future in tackling the perennial energy crises in mainly developing countries. However, others see renewable energy systems as offering unprecedented opportunity to accelerate the transition to modern energy services in the regions where affordability and accessibility of modern energy services are far behind expectations. To these schools of thought, not only will the deployment of RE and EE services increase access to sustainable cooking and heating devices, affordable lighting, communications and refrigeration; improve public health and energy for processing and productive activities, they are also an important contribution to the fight against climate change. It is argued that improved access to clean modern energy in developing countries is a necessary requirement for the reduction of poverty, unemployment and the achievement of other economic goals. Going forward, decentralized RE solutions have been found to play a crucial role in the provision of access to modern, reliable and affordable energy services in rural and remote areas in Sub Sahara Africa. However, the investments in renewable energy mini-grids or stand-alone systems have not reached economies of scale. Many of these solutions face challenges to attract financing due to the absence of tailored financing instruments and high overhead costs for the financiers or due to the absence of formalized policies besides legal and regulatory frameworks. ENERGY ACCESS AND POTENTIALS FOR RENEWABLES The ECOWAS region has one of the lowest energy consumption rates in the world. Household access to electricity services is only around 20% (40% in urban and 6-8% in rural areas). Whereas the world electrical capacity averages 300W per capita, that of the West Africa sub-region averages 50W per capita. Projecting the energy scenarios to 2030, ECREEE indicates that without significant investment in expansion of access, energy poverty will continue to have consider¬able negative consequences on regional economies and societies in West Africa. Another important characteristic of the energy situation in the West Africa that cannot be overlooked is the problems with maintenance and upkeep which reduce functional capacity and creating further challenges. For example, an estimated 400 MW of generation capacity is currently unavailable due to expansion and maintenance issues in Ghana. With regard to the potential for renewables, there are about 23,000 MW of feasible medium to small hydropower potential have been identified out of which 18% or less (4,140MW) have been exploited. Further¬more a huge potential is attributed to all forms of bioenergy (modern biomass, biogas and biofuel); average solar radiation of 5-6 kWh/m2 per day through¬out the year for solar photovoltaic and solar thermal development and considerable wind power potential with an average of 6-7 m/s, going up to 12m/s in some countries. With respect to EE opportunities, there is significant potential to improve the demand side and supply side energy efficiency in buildings, appliances, pow¬er generation and transmission. It is estimated that in West Africa, 25% to 30% of the total electricity supply is consumed in the building sector, namely cooling and hot water heating. The technical and commercial energy losses due to theft and or illegal operators lie in the range of 25% to 30%. Renewable Energy and Climate Change The impact of climate change is becoming a major contention to the sustainable development of the ECOWAS region. According to the ECOWAS annual report, West Africa will pay a heavy price as a result of the negative effects of climate change. Many studies have identified inherent linkages between climate change and renewable energy development and use, and have linked the barriers to the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency to those of climate friendly technologies. It is therefore one part of the solution to create a network of participating actors in the quest for scientific and empirical solutions to the energy access problem in the ECOWAS region. Working together with public, private and third sector partners can be an effective way for communities to achieve their objectives. Conclusions Though renewable energy motivations could lead to similar measures designed to encourage technology development and deployment, sometimes policy und economic barriers become the obvious setback in their progress. Against this back¬ground, the following conclusions can be drawn. The ECOWAS region has no climate change policy. There are climate adaptation strategies The promotion and provision of electricity itself is not enough guarantee to alleviate poverty. It has to be linked with productive uses by the people. There is a necessity for identifying the right forms of energy that are useful to the local people. Gender needs are not properly addressed and factored-in when making decisions on energy services for any area or locality. Financiers of renewable energy ¬technologies (RETs) do not have adequate knowledge of the technologies; Financial mechanisms and RE funding options that are applicable to other regions are not always ideal for West Africa; Policies and legal frameworks formulated in West Africa are hardly implemented or enforced if at all implemented. Operations and maintenance of energy generating infrastructure are poorly done in the sub-region. Thus the culture of maintenance is almost non-existent so operating efficiency keeps going down. RE and EE policies, though have¬ been adopted by the heads of governments of the ECOWAS member states, are not being implemented. A more comprehensive version will be published in the WAI Critical Analysis and Action Strategies series. It has been written in the framework of the WAI-ZEI Fellowship on RE and EE, conducted at WAI in 2014. By John Kwasi Yeboah, Junior Policy Officer at the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) in Praia, Cabo Verde and a WAI-ZEI Fellow.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:01:33 +0000