Even though Africa is home to some of the best renewable resources on the planet, 596 million people still lacked access to modern energy in 2021, representing about 43% of the continent’s population of nearly 1.2 billion. A reliable and affordable energy supply is key to ensuring a sustainable development of Africa in both rural areas, where basic needs must be met, and urban areas, where a reliable supply is crucial to ensuring economic development. For example, extending national grids can be a cost-efficient option for enabling access to energy by 2030. However, in rural areas, where over 80% of those without electricity live, mini grids and stand-alone systems, which are mostly solar based, are seen as a viable solution.
In this context, the application of state-of-the-art energy system and power system models for African regional analyses are key to understanding how to develop and secure, sustainable, reliable and competitive energy supply in each region of the continent. Today, most models used in Africa have usually been designed and implemented in developed countries and are still maintained there. Thus, Africa is relying on external countries for modelling and expertise. Local expertise would already be able to develop analytic models, but there is a lack of human resources and funding. Implementing a transparent data exchange scheme and sharing system that facilitates the benchmarking of results or obtaining a second opinion on these results is also of outmost importance in this process.
OpenMod4Africa is an abbreviation for “Open Modelling Toolbox for development of long-term pathways for the energy system in Africa”. OpenMod4Africa develops an open Toolbox populated with state-of-the-art models for analysing long-term pathways to sustainable, secure and competitive energy systems in Africa. The Toolbox builds on EU projects like Open ENTRANCE and Plan4RES, and adapts and further develops open models in accordance with the African context and needs. The models are scalable, and can be applied to cities, industries and countries. Furthermore, a main objective for OpenMod4Africa is capacity building among local energy system modeler experts in academia. Five African universities are actively involved in adapting the models and conducting three regional case studies. The additional capacity and the open Toolbox will enable the universities to train new generations of energy modelling experts for the energy industries in Africa. Three decision-makers are also engaged, together with a network of energy industries and universities in 26 African countries. These players are invited to use the Toolbox, and to be involved in training activities. They are also invited to a permanent network of expertise, which is developed for further capacity building and collaboration beyond the project.
Three cases develop energy pathways for rural areas, cities, countries and large regions of countries in Western and Eastern Africa and in Tunisia. The replication strategies will pave the way for further analyses beyond the project.
Important long-term impacts from the three-year project are enabling academia and decision-makers in Africa to conduct their own analyses for the optimal development of their energy system, supplying energy to a much larger share of the population, and establishing an energy system based upon the abundant share of renewables.
The project has an advisory board consisting of experts in Africa and energy policy.
You can learn more about the project on its web page openmod4africa.eu or by follow its LinkedIn account.
