Back to News

Disaggregation and characterization of residential electricity use: Analysis for Ghana 20/05/2019


As the socio-economic need of mankind and population continue to grow, electricity consumption estimates become necessary for energy system planning. In Ghana, residential electricity is currently the second largest and growing rapidly.

Written by Felix Amankwah Diawuo, together with Marriette Sakah, André Pina, Patricia Baptista and Carlos Santos Silva, this paper  aims to comprehensively disaggregate and characterize the residential electricity demand in Ghana. Nine scenarios were designed and tested between 2015 and 2050, considering 21 household appliances and 4 lighting technologies under 8 classes of electricity end-uses. A bottom-up approach based on stock accounting model and a technological-based top-down approach were adopted to estimate electricity consumption using demand factors such as population, gross domestic product and appliance ownership.

The results show that seven appliances and one lighting technology consisting of refrigerator, air conditioner, television, freezer, fan, electric iron, washing machine and CFL constituted about 93% of residential electricity consumption in 2015 and are projected to hold a dominant 90% share in 2050.

Read full paper >>