Consultative Workshop on IRENA North African Power Pool Modelling

Virtual

Building on IRENA’s project titled “Addressing Variable Renewable Energy in Long-Term Energy Planning (AVRIL)” and on the expertise gained through various discussions and sessions held under the AVRIL project, IRENA released its “Planning for the renewable future: Long-term modelling and tools to expand variable renewable power in emerging economies”. In this regard, a five-day regional workshop was held in Amman in April 2019, in co-operation with the LAS, the RCREEE and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) to discuss the report findings and its relation to long-term energy/power sector planning with VRE in the context of the Arab region. This was the first workshop in the region to focus on planning and modelling for VRE.

Furthermore, in the context of the North African sub-region, and during the last 10 years, IRENA has been developing and maintaining power system models of five African power pools, separately configured for each country in each power pool. IRENA’s power system models for long-term capacity expansion planning – called SPLAT models – have been used as a basis of IRENA’s analytical report “Planning and Prospects for Renewable Power” series, while they are also used as a starter kit for national and regional capacity-building programmes.

This capacity building workshop was be realised as a two-day online workshop to achieve the two following objectives:

  • The first objective was to follow up on the high-priority issues identified by regional participants in the 2019 IRENA AVRIL workshop and its summary report, organised within the framework of the PACE Initiative.
  • The second objective of this workshop was to align IRENA’s efforts with the ongoing efforts towards establishment of a regional North African masterplan, in the context of the process led by MED-TSO as well as CMP efforts led by AUDA-NEPAD, in addition to discussing IRENA’s modelling methodologies with power sector planning experts in the region and to exchange ideas for better representation of renewable energy in the country’s planning processes through interactive discussions.

Closed event, by invitation only.