A Conceptual Framing for Country Selection for the Inclusion in Renewable Energy Super Grids in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

The literature highlights that sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing increasing pressure on the power sector due to low diversified energy generation, coal-fired electricity generation causing a considerable amount of GHGs, low utilisation of renewable energy potential and limited collaboration between nations to building a power sector in which countries can share their electricity generated. Therefore, a need exists in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to find a more informed, refined and sophisticated approach to conceptualise and develop a renewable energy super grid. The broader problem calls for evaluation methods that could assist in the evaluation of sub-Saharan African countries considered for inclusion in a renewable energy-based super grid. Therefore, there is a need to provide decision support on evaluating the countries' capabilities in order to ultimately provide decision support to select countries for inclusion in a renewable energy super grid. In this article, a conceptual framing for the decision support to facilitate the process of country selection for inclusion in a super grid in SSA is presented. This article presents a conceptual framing of the key consideration and evaluation perspectives for such a decision support framework. Recommended future work is the operationalisation of the decision support framework to establish a methodology to effectively evaluation and select countries for inclusion in a renewable energy super grid in SSA.