Comparing Levelized Cost of Electricity from Photovoltaics in West Africa and Germany

Abstract

The transition towards a decarbonized sustainable energy system in the world is the most efficient pathway through the use of renewable energy sources. The dependency on fossil fuels as sources of energy for the past decades has attributed to climate change and global warming through greenhouse gas emissions. West Africa in general is faced with threat of an energy crisis due to the growing population. Thus, there is an urgent need to find sustainable and climate-smart ways for generating energy for the growing population. Photovoltaics (PV) could potentially play a key role in the drive towards an energy transition. According to H2 Atlas, West Africa has enormous potential of solar resource for the production of energy through photovoltaics. On the other hand, Germany is aiming to leave the fossil-nuclear age behind, and paving the way for PV to play a central role in a future shaped by sustainable energy production. This thesis compares the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from utility-scale grid-tied solar PV systems in West Africa and Germany. The thesis focuses mainly on three countries in West Africa (namely: Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Niger) and Germany, the three countries are chosen based on the climatic regions in West Africa. The system capacity for Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Niger and Germany are 5 MW, 10 MW, 20 MW and 30 MW respectively. The comparative analysis considers the geographic location, the cost and the LCOE of the solar PV systems. An excel spreadsheet is used to calculate the LCOE and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) surface meteorological as well as Solar Energy (SSE) data sets from RETScreen have been used to obtain climatic data of each case study. Based on the assumptions of this thesis, the solar PV system produces, on average, about 20,854.89 MWh/yr of electricity available for grid export. This yields an average performance ratio and capacity factor 75.6% and 16.0% respectively. The levelized cost of electricity ranges from 0.0766 €/kWh to 0.1333 €/kWh in the absence of revenues and capital subsidies. These findings suggests that a cost-effective and environmentally efficient restructuring of West Africa and Germany power generation system is feasible. Solar PV is becoming increasingly competitive with conventional power generation due to the falling unit investment costs and increasing capacity. Thus, during the transition phase, efforts are required to improve and optimize the grid-integration of solar PV as well as to uphold the long-term security of the electricity supply.