Geospatial estimation and projection of electricity demand in Burkina Faso for efficient and sustainable rural electrification

Abstract Approximately 75% of Burkinabè, predominantly in rural areas, still lack electricity access at home. This energy poverty also impacts productive sectors like agriculture and small enterprises, as well as public facilities such as education and healthcare. To gauge the electricity requirements to tackle energy poverty and project them to the year 2060, the Multi-sectoral Latent Electricity Demand (M-LED) model is implemented in Burkina Faso. The analysis aims at supporting effective planning of electricity access infrastructure and allocation of resources with careful assessment of the diverse energy needs across space, time, and sectors. Under a baseline scenario, for example, the total electricity demand including latent is predicted to reach 11.4 TWh by 2030 (compared to the current demand of around 2.7 TWh). The demand is projected to be distributed across 6 TWh for residential load, 1.9 TWh for commercial and micro-enterprise sectors, 335 GWh for irrigation, 3 GWh for crop processing and less than 2 GWh for healthcare and school facilities. However, scenarios of more ambitious agricultural policy could increase the national demand to 12.9 TWh by 2030. Improving electricity planning in agricultural areas will help enhance agricultural productivity, avoid food waste, support food security targets, and improve the quality of healthcare and education sectors. Achieving such ambitious objectives will require improved or ambitious electricity planning programme from the government of Burkina Faso. Our analysis of results from the developed model devotes specific attention to the implications for water-energy-agriculture-development interlinkages.