IRENA-ECREEE Energy Planning Capacity-Building Programme: Training 1

Dakar, Senegal

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) held a training course in Dakar introducing SPLAT-W, the System Planning Test model for the West African power system.

At the first face-to-face session, participants were introduced to the use of the model and learned how to create different scenarios for long-term power-sector development. Working sessions incorporated the latest data (provided by participants).

The course came as part of a six-month capacity-development programme organised by IRENA and ECREEE in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The programme began in October 2015.

SPLAT-W allows national energy planners to assess the future energy mix from economic, technical and environmental perspectives. The tool was developed by IRENA, building on the IAEA’s MESSAGE software.

The IAEA Planning and Economic Studies Section provided technical expertise in the use of MESSAGE, while the UNFCCC Sustainable Development Management Programme provided complementary training sessions on access to carbon finance, particularly via the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and grid emission-factor calculation methodology.

The training aims to build and enhance capacity for long-term energy planning in ten countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS): Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, The Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. The participants are experts from the energy-planning offices at ministries, electric utilities and specialised agencies in those countries.

Through the courses (one on-line and two face-to-face), country teams have developed scenarios describing cost-optimised integration of renewable energy into the power sector. These scenarios can in turn guide national renewable energy policies in line with the ECOWAS Regional Renewable Energy Policy adopted in 2013.  

For the agenda and lecture materials, please click here.

For a description of the second course in Dakar, click here.

The training programme follows an earlier IRENA-ECREEE workshop, Renewable Energy Planning for the West African Power Pool, held in Abijan, Ivory Coast, in December 2012.