Photo: Sungrow EMEA on Unsplash

The Sahel countries face numerous challenges with regard to the energy sector hindering economic development in the region. The good news is there is huge potential for solar power generation. Because of this, the Desert to Power Programme of the African Development Bank is mobilizing support and investments to tap into this potential and develop 10GW of clean electricity for 250 million people across the Sahel region.

At the same time, the Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA) and the African Development Bank are jointly implementing the Africa Acceleration Adaptation Program that is also focusing on the resilience of infrastructure to the impacts of climate change.  One of the pillars of this programme is the Africa Infrastructure Resilience Accelerator (AIRA), which integrates climate resilience aspects into investments. Under the AIRA, GCA has commissioned the consortium of GlobalCAD, Meteosim and OCA Global to develop climate hazard data and a climate risk screening tool (QGIS) for solar power investments.

The team will conduct a climate risk assessment to identify current and projected climate hazards and hotspots of vulnerability for solar investments in Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. The resulting layers of different types of climate risks, extremes and other relevant information that could be presented spatially will then be included in a climate risk screening tool that will support the assessment of climate hazards and inform investment decisions.

Additionally, the consortium will also develop technical guidelines for climate-resilient solar assets in the 11 Sahel countries. The guidelines will provide orientation for solar asset siting, design, operations and maintenance to mitigate the impacts of climate hazards on solar systems.

The project will run from September to January 2023. 

Anna Maria Franco Gantiva

Anna María Franco Gantiva is consultant at GlobalCAD since December 2021 as part of the green economy and climate change team.