Planning for a 100% renewable energy system for the Santiago Island, Cape Verde

Ensuring the supply of affordable energy, improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are some of the priorities of the governments of several countries. The pursuit of these energy goals has triggered interest in the exploration and usage of Renewable Energy Sources (RES), which can be particularly appropriate for island systems as is the case of Cape Verde. This work proposes a generation expansion planning model for Cape Verde considering a 20 years’ period. Different scenarios were analysed, each one representing a possible RES contribution for electricity production, reaching a 100% RES share. The results demonstrate that the increase of the RES in the system will lead to an increase of the total cost of energy. However, both CO2 emissions and external energy dependency of the country significantly decrease. The seasonality of the RES resources, and in particular of wind power is shown to be one of the most important challenges for the effective uptake of such a renewable power system. While the proposed model allowed already to present some useful scenarios, it becomes also evident the need to expand the analysis, and the paper concludes with directions for future research.