Estimating the spatially explicit wind generated electricity cost in Africa - A GIS based analysis

Nowadays, more than 620 million people in Africa live without access to electricity. Nowhere in the world is the chasm between available energy resources and access to electricity greater than on the African continent. With the exception of conventional hydropower, the share of renewable energy in the electricity mix remains insignificant, despite the considerable untapped renewable energy potential in the region. A critical issue in the development of renewable energy sources is the cost, which is a function of the resource availability, the geographic and topological characteristics of a studied area as well as the selected energy conversion technologies. This paper applies a detailed Geographic Information Systems (GIS) approach in order to identify the cost of generating electricity using onshore wind turbines considering several localization criteria. The levelized cost of wind generated electricity is calculated geospatially and shall be used as an indicator to compare different suitable sites at the pre-feasibility stage. The levelized cost of generating electricity varies between 0.04 and 0.17 USD/kWh, placing wind power in a cost competitive position in the electricity market of the continental countries.