Assessment of the Electricity Generation Mix in Ghana : the Potential of Renewable Energy

Sammanfattning: Electricity is a fundamental part a functioning society. Ghana’s electricity system is strained by an ever-growing climate instability and increase of population. Therefore, it is crucial for the country's development that it's electricity supply is done in a sustainable way. This report aims to analyze Ghana’s ability to reach SDG 7.1 and the Marrakech Vision, an outcome from the COP 22 meeting in Morocco. This was done by creating a model over Ghana’s electricity system and how it develops over time, called BAU, using the analytical tools: OSeMOSYS and OnSSET. A practical implementation of BAU was then discussed. After that, three development scenarios with different renewable energy targets for the electricity system, were implemented in the model. The results show that CSP and natural gas power plants were the most prominent electricity producers. The growing share of renewable energy in the target scenarios was mostly due to wind power, replacing the natural gas power plants. Ghana has local natural gas resources as well as high solar potential. The rising share of renewable energy limits the fossil fuel emission. At the same time, this increased share also endangers the reliability of the electricity supply, as the capacity of renewable energy resources fluctuate and could lead to high investment costs. BAU can be a possible solution which minimizes the fossil fuel consumption and limits the CO2 emissions, but at the risk of possibly having an unreliable electricity supply. To be able to meet SDG 7.1, increasing the share of renewable energy in electricity generation can be a solution, but at the same time, not all requirements of the goal will be fulfilled.