Database on freshwater demand for electricity in Africa

The database was developed as part of a research endeavor funded by the CGIAR Initiative on Foresight. This resulted in a paper analyzing freshwater demand for electricity in the year 2020. The paper is available from here: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4EW00246F.

The article provides a detailed analysis of freshwater demand for electricity production in Africa, using freely accessible data. The study includes 2,534 power plants, categorizing them by fuel type, operation cycle, infrastructure, cooling system, and local climate. Total water withdrawal and consumption were 33,108 million m³ and 23,822 million m³ per year, respectively, for 2020. The study’s open-access database offers valuable statistics for water management and energy stakeholders, with results available at national, subnational, and river basin levels. This comprehensive compilation allowed for an accurate assessment of freshwater demand for electricity production at various geographic scales.

Underling data sources

The researchers utilized databases such as the GEM Wiki, Power Technology, Google Maps, national reports or also newspapers, which provided detailed information on the location, capacity, and type of power plants across Africa. Additional data on water usage specific to different types of power plants and cooling technologies were integrated. Climate zones were sourced from the Köppen–Geiger classification.

Data availability

The data is currently available through the paper’s supporting information in EXCEL format. The database includes all power plants, installed capacities, electricity generated in 2020, location coordinates and information on water type for cooling per fuel type per African country. We validated total electricity production per country per energy source with data from the IEA for 2020. For small countries for which the IEA did not give data, we validated using data from IRENA37 for 2021. The Excel file can be downloaded here:

https://www.rsc.org/suppdata/d4/ew/d4ew00246f/d4ew00246f1.xlsx
https://www.rsc.org/suppdata/d4/ew/d4ew00246f/d4ew00246f3.xlsx

Contact

For more information contact Davy Vanham at IWMI.

References

Gerbens-Leenes, W.P., Vaca-Jiménez, S., Holmatov, B. and Vanham, D., 2024. Spatially distributed freshwater demand for electricity in Africa. Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology.