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Beyond Carbon Emissions: A System of Systems Approach to Sustainable Energy Development in East Africa

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Food-Energy-Water Nexus Resilience and Sustainable Development

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Abstract

East Africa is embarking on an ambitious journey to improve access to energy and support its rapid economic and population growth. Hydropower dominates the region’s electricity sector and the current plans continue to favor this technology for future development. This chapter analyzes the desirability of energy alternatives across East Africa using a System of Systems approach that assesses the performance of technologies across four vital systems namely economy, climate, land, and water. The Relative Aggregate Footprint (RAF) of different energy options in East Africa is measured with respect to the resource availability conditions of the countries in the region. The study results show geothermal and solar to be among the most desirable energy technologies for East Africa, while biomass and oil are the least desirable alternatives. Hydropower is outperformed by fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Its desirability ranges from average to highly undesirable once its impacts on other resources beyond carbon emissions are considered. Comparison of the desirability of alternatives against the planned investments of the region shows serious disparities. This calls for fundamental changes in the development policies in the energy sector of the region if a more sustainable electricity mix is to be achieved.

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Caveat

Parts of this chapter have been reproduced from a master’s dissertation report of Amanda Kahunzire at Imperial College London.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy Futures Lab, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Amanda Kahunzire

  2. Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Maral Mahlooji & Kaveh Madani

  3. The Macmillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Kaveh Madani

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  1. Amanda Kahunzire
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  2. Maral Mahlooji
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Correspondence to Kaveh Madani .

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  1. Department of Architectural Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Somayeh Asadi

  2. Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

    Behnam Mohammadi-Ivatloo

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Kahunzire, A., Mahlooji, M., Madani, K. (2020). Beyond Carbon Emissions: A System of Systems Approach to Sustainable Energy Development in East Africa. In: Asadi, S., Mohammadi-Ivatloo, B. (eds) Food-Energy-Water Nexus Resilience and Sustainable Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40052-1_15

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