The project has developed long-term WEF optimisation models for the basin countries, leveraging the CLEWs (Climate, Land, Energy, Water systems) framework. For Ghana, a first model has been successfully developed for long-term infrastructure planning using OSeMOSYS, and it is undergoing continuous refinement through stakeholder engagement and Transition Space (TS) interactions, which help verify modelling decisions, geospatial and sectoral aggregation levels, and demand projections. Similarly, Country CLEWs analyses for Kenya and Burkina Faso are actively under development. The project's WEF tool integrates OSeMOSYS and OnSSET, comprising three parts: OSGEM for geospatially explicit electrification pathways, a River Basin CLEWs Model for detailed agricultural activities with spatially specific data, and a Country CLEWs Model for national energy system integration with water and land use.
Furthermore, significant progress has been made in validating long-term WEF models for operational functionality and dispatchability. This involves the development and application of spatially explicit approaches and operational/dispatch models for WEF infrastructure systems. Key advancements include the implementation of a spatially explicit Pumped Hydro Energy Storage (PHES) assessment methodology and its application in Kenya, which considers basin-level water and land demands for storage and identifies strategic closed-loop PHES locations that maximise system flexibility while minimising the levelized cost of storage and explicitly accounting for land use under various climate scenarios, incorporating hourly unit commitment and seasonal variations. The project has also developed an innovative approach linking urban development patterns with electrification pathways using machine learning for spatial electricity demand forecasting in Kenya.
Transition Spaces (TS) have been established in Ghana and Kenya, providing platforms for key stakeholders to co-create strategies and actions for sustainability transitions. A transition governance framework has been developed for the agricultural, water, energy, and land management policy landscapes, aiming to clarify the embedded values and principles in existing policies and their coherence with the WEF governance principles. The EPIC Africa Research Network (EARN) has been established within the basin countries, facilitating co-creation of models and tools by African and EU partners to build lasting expertise and enhance local capacity in the partner institutions and more broadly in the partner countries and Africa.
