Workshop on Energy and Water modelling: Round 2

In October and November 2019, the CIREG consortium organized a second round of training workshops on Energy and Water modelling in Accra (29 October – 1 November) and Ouagadougou (4 – 7 November), following up on the first round from March 2019. Both workshops were hosted by the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

The workshop provided hands-on training in using SEI's Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning system (LEAP) and the Water Evaluation and Planning system (WEAP) tools. In addition, this second workshop round also focused on the back-end models SWIM (for hydrological simulations) and the new REVUB model (for assessing the potential for hydropower-driven flexibility for grid integration of solar and wind power), both of which are used provide high-resolution input data for the WEAP-LEAP modelling.

The workshops were attended by high-level and technical staff from various governmental and research organisations in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger and Togo.

The workshops in Accra were covered on Ghanaian news, including interviews with CIREG researchers Stefan Liersch (from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research/PIK) and Seyni Salack (WASCAL). CIREG researcher Sebastian Sterl, from the Free University of Brussels/VUB, also wrote a blog piece for the World Energy Meteorology Council (WEMC) providing more details on the objectives and outcomes of this second workshop round.