Energy planning in Sub-Saharan African countries needs to explicitly consider productive uses of electricity

Studies show the role of various electrification technologies in providing electricity access to households in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on electricity demand for end-use services such as lighting, cooking, heating, cooling, and other appliance use. The demand for productive use of electricity, which is important to enhance income generation opportunities and labour productivity, is usually not considered. Using the IMAGE-TIMER integrated assessment model framework, this paper presents a methodology to project the impact of productive activities on the electricity system of the region.

This paper shows that growing productive activities increase household electricity demand by half, which has important consequences for determining the cost-optimal electrification technologies. It argues that the planning of electricity systems should accommodate this increase in electricity demand for productive uses. In addition, while productive uses of electricity have a positive impact on the financial viability of electrification systems, they also considerably increase the electricity sector investment requirements .

Authors

PBL Authors
Anteneh Dagnachew
Other authors
Su-Min Choi
Giacomo Falchetta

Specifications

Publication title
Energy planning in Sub-Saharan African countries needs to explicitly consider productive uses of electricity
Publication date
10 August 2023
Publication type
Article
Publication language
English
Magazine
Nature Scientific Reports
Issue
13, Article number: 13007
Product number
5257