In rural Sub-Saharan Africa, about 86% of the population has no access to electricity. Where West Africa’s population is projected to double by 2050, the electricity demand is expected to increase fivefold by 2030 (IRENA, 2015). To meet the future electricity demand, decentralised off-grid and stand-alone solutions complement existing centralised grids. The abundance of unexploited renewable energy potential in West Africa is a valuable prerequisite for the implementation of modern energy technologies. This is an opportunity to keep future Greenhouse Gas emissions at a low level, energy prices affordable, and contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. West African countries have a large potential to leapfrog on modern renewable energy technologies, a crucial transformation process the CIREG project intends to support by co-developing climate services and solutions to provide relevant information to stakeholders and decision-makers. For that, the project will provide model-based support for decision-makers, including governments and the private sector, in particular by integrating energy and water planning, as a basis for climate-resilient and sustainable renewable electricity generation (REG) deployment. The project establishes demand driven and context-specific climate services for West Africa at various spatio-temporal scales (seasonal, short- and long-term). Local, national, regional, transboundary and large river basin scales will be addressed using a transdisciplinary, model- and user-driven approach. CIREG will investigate the regional potential for REG, such as wind- solar- and hydropower, and will identify possible transition pathways towards REG systems considering present climate variability and projected future climate change in West Africa.
The CIREG project is coordinated by PIK. PIK is involved in the science policy dialogue, the co-development of relevant and targeted climate information, and science communication and dissemination. The inhouse eco-hydrological model SWIM is used to assess hydropower potentials in the Niger, Volta, and Mono River basins under climate change risks. Moreover, PIK is coordinating the installation of a 10 kWh hybrid electrification system based on solar PV and micro hydropower in a village with 120 households at the lower Mono River in Togo.
