Gambia household energy storage battery costs

Solar: with dramatically falling solar and battery storage costs, and abundant solar resources in The Gambia, competitively procured solar-with-storage IPPs offer The Gambia an excellent opportunity to introduce clean and low cost energy into the mix.

The Gambia has significant solar energy resources which can be deployed via solar PV plants, which have become price competitive with thermal plants and attractive for advancing national renewable energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. IRENA (2018) has estimated national solar potential at 428 MW.

The existing electricity network in The Gambia consists of a number of separate 33 kV and 30 kV systems fed from local power plants throughout the country. On-going projects are developing the transmission grid to interconnect these systems and establish interconnections with neighbouring systems.

Providing access to electricity to support inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development is one of the pivotal cornerstones of the Gambia government's priorities as articulated in the national energy sector policies and strategies, and highlighted in the National Development Plan (2018-2021).

The Gambia is considered to have approximately 25 MW of potential biomass capacity with the primary fuel being waste9. However, biomass candidate power plants were excluded from the analysis as they were considered by NAWEC inadequate technologies for The Gambia.

An unprecedented level of support from the international community provides The Gambia with the opportunity to transform the energy sector and emerge as one of the leading energy sectors in the sub-region and the African continent. In this context, the Electricity Roadmap has undergone its third update since 2015.