Abstract for: Integrated Electricity Planning Pathway - Achieving Nationally Determined Contribution of Oil Rich Sub Saharan Africa

The issues of climate change, lack of access to electricity and the heavy reliance on fossil fuel export for economic development in Oil Rich Sub-Saharan African countries (ORSSA) present a tri-fold, multi-complex energy problem clouded in deep uncertainties. Currently 573 million people living in this region lack access to electricity and these countries are currently characterised by growing population and low industrialisation which are factors that increases energy demand and drive climate change. However, ORSSA countries are also expected to partake in global effort of tackling climate change by signing up to Paris agreement and have agreed to Intended National Determined Contribution (NDCs) as a way of reducing their CO2 emissions. Achieving these goal will entail complex trade-offs and require deep understanding of this regions energy system, their interaction with social, economic and environmental subsystems, in order to develop policies that will drive energy transition pathways that provides electricity access, economic growth whilst reducing environmental pollution simultaneously. This paper sets out to develop a Decision Support Tool based on Systems thinking- Systems Dynamics paradigm for Integrated Electricity Planning as a Pathway to achieving their NDCs energy goals using Nigeria as a case reference. It is a work in progress.