Introduction
This screening tool for climate risks for solar technologies in the Sahel region provides an overview on the climate risk level for different climate hazards that can have detrimental effects on solar technologies. The tool has been developed for the Sahel countries Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan. It is intended to provide a first idea to interested stakeholders such as the beneficiary countries’ ministries, departments and agencies, as well as other interested public sector actors and stakeholders involved in solar energy investment planning, on the extent to which solar technology investments might be affected by a specific climate hazard in a given location.
Objective
The tool aims to facilitate investment decisions by providing first high-level insights on current and future climate risks relevant to solar energy investments that can help identifying more specific research and assessment needs. The climate risks are taking into account i) the vulnerability of solar technologies to a specific climate hazard and ii) the prevalence of a climate specific hazard in a given location. The climate risk level is displayed on a scale from minor to very severe.
Through a set of technical guidelines, the tool also provides guidance and recommendations on how to avoid and/or reduce the possible impacts of the different hazards on solar technologies.
How to use the tool?
To start using the tool, please choose between the current data and one of the two future projections, click risk hazard and select on the solar technology you are interested in. The projections reflect historical, conservative and worst-case scenario with regards to the development of the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere.
The tool covers 11 countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan) in the Sahel and allows you to zoom into a resolution of 50km².
Desert to Power initiative
The Desert to Power initiative, a flagship renewable energy and economic development program of the African Development Bank (AfDB), seeks to leverage the renewable energy potential of the Sahel region. The initiative aims to mobilize investments for the development of 10GW of clean electricity for 250 million people across the Sahel region, turning the region into a renewable energy powerhouse. Planning of solar investments needs to take the impacts of the changing climate into account to assure that new solar plants and investments are able to withstand the impacts of climate change and to adapt to its possible effects. Through the Africa Acceleration Adaptation Programme (AAAP), the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is providing the added value to mainstream climate resilience into desert-to-power investment. The goal is to climate-proof renewable energy assets and services under the Desert to Power initiative to the impacts of physical climate hazards.
The climate risk screening tool is based on the results of a hazard assessment that analyses the risks of climate change for solar technologies in the Sahel based on climatological and climate hazard data and identifies current and projected climate hazards and risk hotspots across the Sahel. (Report accessible here)
The Spatial Climate Hazard Data and Risk Screening Tool for solar technologies in the Sahel Region is based on QGIS.