Renewable energy in Gabon

In 2008, Gabon produced 0.55 quadrillion BTUs (QBTUs) of primary energy, an increase of 0.01 QBTUs over the prior year and a compound growth rate of 0.7% over a 5 year period.

Primary energy consumption meanwhile increased by 9.49% over the prior year to 0.05 QBTUs, equating to 32.86 million BTUs per capita which places Gabon into the 64th percentile of countries worldwide for per capita primary energy consumption.

Gabon’s total electricity capacity has increased on an annual compound basis by 1.47% over the last 20 years to 415 megawatts (MW) in 2008. In the last year, the total installed capacity base neither increased nor decreased.

Total renewable energy capacity accounts for 40.96% of this total installed capacity base whilst renewable energy sources excluding hydropower account for 0%.

Total capacity did not increase in the last year whilst Conventional Thermal Energy added the most capacity in the last 5 years, reaching 245 MW in 2008.

Total electricity generation meanwhile climbed 10.66% over the last year to 1.96 billion kilowatthours (bn kWh) in 2008 with the largest source for electricity generation being Conventional Thermal (54.57% of total net generation).

Conventional sources including conventional thermal (coal, petroleum, gas), nuclear power and hydro pumped storage accounted for 54.57% of total electricity generated, up from 40.12% 5 years previously.

Conventional Energy sources represented 59.04% of total installed capacity in Gabon in 2008, an increase of 0.1 percentage points over a 5 year period.

Conventional thermal energy had an installed capacity base of 245 MW in 2008, a change of 0 MW over the previous year and a 0.08% change on a compound basis over a 5 year period. Conventional thermal energy has seen its share of total installed capacity increase from 58.94% in 2004 to 59.04% in 2008. Conventional Thermal Energy generated 1.07 billion kilowatthours of electricity in 2008, equating to 4.37 billion kilowatthours of electricity per million kilowatts of capacity.

Hydroelectricity had an installed capacity base of 170 MW in 2008, a change of 0 MW over the previous year. It’s share of total installed capacity decreased from 41.06% in 2004 to 40.96% in 2008 and it’s share of renewable installed capacity remained unchanged at 100% in 2008.

Hydroelectricity generated 0.89 billion kilowatthours of electricity in 2008, equating to 45.09% of the total electricity generated. This is equivalent to 5.21 billion kilowatthours of electricity per million kilowatts of capacity, which was the highest ratio amongst renewable energy sources.

Gabon has 0.77% of the total regional capacity for Hydroelectricity and ranks at #104 in the world for Hydroelectricity installed capacity.

In 2008, total carbon dioxide emissions in Gabon reached 4.74 million Metric Tonnes (mn MT), a compound decrease of -0.75% over a 5 year period. Gabon’s total represented 0.41% of total regional emissions and 0.02% of total world emissions.

On a per capita basis meanwhile, Gabon ranked at #106 worldwide, with per capita emissions increasing on 2007 by 0.1 metric tonnes to 3.19 metric tonnes.

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