Modeling the Impact of Power Generation on the Water Sector in the North, Eastern and Central African Power Pools

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a new open-source modelling framework for three African power pools (Central, Eastern and North). The proposed model provides insights regarding the power generation, system adequacy, total operational costs, freshwater consumption and withdrawals, and CO2 emissions linked to the power sector. Water-energy nexus indicators such as water exploitation index, water withdrawal and consumption related to power generation are computed for the three power pools and for representative power plants. They indicate that the analyzed power pools are strongly dependent on the availability of water resources: the variation between unusually wet and unusually dry years significantly impacts the final energy mix, the total operational costs, the total carbon emissions and increases the water stress index of the system. The relative impact of water consumption over water withdrawals is low because of the predominance of once-through cooling systems in the most vulnerable countries.