Between 2020 and 2023, IRENA implemented the Regional Africa Modelling Analysis & Planning Support Programme for Central Africa, in partnership with the Central African Power Pool (CAPP). The programme gave practical training and insight into how to develop national and regional generation capacity expansion scenarios that can inform the energy planning process. It was delivered to over 70 key staff from the region’s national energy institutions. This report aims to build on that work by performing a consolidated regional analysis of potential scenarios for regional long-term power sector development. In doing so, it provides a foundation of transparent power sector data, as well as providing scenarios for long-term infrastructure development to local stakeholders.
Some of the key insights from the results are:
- In all the scenarios covered by this report, renewables are central to meeting demand and trade expansion in Central Africa. In every scenario, out to the modelling horizon of 2040, hydropower remains the largest renewable energy source in the region, supplying nearly 70% of its electricity.
- Reductions in the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind are driving their expansion in the regional capacity mix
- There is large, untapped potential for cross-border electricity trade inside and outside the CAPP region
- Cumulative system costs and investment in the CAPP region vary significantly depending on future assumptions in the areas of demand and cross-border trade
Access the report here
