Flexible power technologies will make Africa’s energy leapfrogging a reality’
Lagos -- Africa’s ability to leapfrog traditional power systems and adopt renewables on a massive scale is not a fantasy, according to the findings of studies by Wärtsilä.
The studies have demonstrated that with the adequate support of flexible power technologies, ambitious renewable energy objectives in Africa were not only achievable, but represented the soundest and cheapest strategy for the successful electrification of the continent.
There has been much discussion about Africa’s ability to ‘leapfrog’ the way power systems have been built in the western world.
For over a century, traditional power systems have been based on centralised power generation, with a limited number of large thermal power plants providing baseload electricity through a massive transmission network.
This way of generating power is however coming to an end: the climate emergency is calling for a 180-degrees paradigm shift in which renewables replace thermal power plants as the baseload source of energy.
This new power generation paradigm is, in many ways, a perfect fit for Africa, the studied showed.
Africa enjoys some of the highest wind and solar energy resources on the planet, which means that the renewable energy plants built in the continent boast some of the best productivity rates in the world. Almost anywhere in Africa, renewables are the cheapest power generation option available today by a significant margin, the studies showed.
Although relatively ambitious renewable energy targets have been set by most governments across the continent, there is still widespread scepticism that renewable energy, which is intermittent by nature, can provide a reliable source of baseload power.
Power sub-station
This scepticism is unjustified, Wärtsilä said. With the appropriate deployment of grid balancing technologies like gas engine power plants or energy storage, huge amounts of renewable energy can be built in the system while at the same time ensuring a stable and reliable network.