New publication

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. A critical issue in the development of available local 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.

KTH dESA researcher  and colleagues conducted an assessment that is based on 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.

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