The relative importance of uncertain parameters and structural formulation for electricity systems planning in Kenya...

When investigating access to electricity in Sub-Saharan African countries such as Kenya and Benin, which have access rates of 71% and 42% respectively (2020), modelers are faced with limited computational resources, poor data availability, and energy systems undergoing dramatic changes in the supply, transmission and distribution, and demand sides. This paper explores the relative importance of path-dependent modeling decisions, such as spatial and temporal resolution, and parametric uncertainties, such as final energy demand, discount rate, and capital costs. We use global sensitivity analysis to find that electricity demand, discount rate, and temporal and spatial resolution significantly influence the assessed results parameters. Results differ between countries showing that the model setup must use spatial and technological parameter values appropriate for the context. The results show that especially when modeling the expansion of the network, spatial and temporal resolution should be customizable and changed, even between scenarios, depending on the research question.