A groundbreaking techno-economic study reveals that Tunisia could power its entire electricity grid with renewable energy by 2050 using proven technologies—solar photovoltaics, hydropower, and pumped hydro storage—while dramatically reducing its dependence on imported natural gas.
Published in Frontiers in Energy Research, the research presents the first comprehensive national-scale least-cost optimization for Tunisia’s energy future, demonstrating that existing technologies can meet the country’s growing power demands sustainably and affordably.
A Nation Poised for Solar Transformation
Despite abundant sunshine—with average horizontal irradiance of 4.5 to 5.5 kilowatt-hours per square metre daily across most regions—Tunisia’s electricity system remains structurally dependent on fossil fuels. Natural gas-fired plants dominate generation, leaving the economy vulnerable to volatile fuel prices and supply disruptions.
The study highlights a striking opportunity: per capita electricity consumption currently stands at just 0.5 megawatt-hours per resident annually, signaling enormous growth potential as transportation, industry, cooking, and heating increasingly shift toward electrification in coming decades.
Modeling Tunisia’s Renewable Future
The research team, led by Hedi Trabelsi and Rym Belgaroui alongside colleagues at King Faisal University and the Laboratory of Economic and Management in Sfax, developed a high-resolution model of Tunisia’s electrical future extending to 2050. The framework divides the country into governorate-aligned nodes, maps transformation sites using QGIS software, and simulates hourly power supply-demand balance over a decade (2013-2022).
At the methodology’s core lies nonlinear least-cost optimization solved through the Differential Evolution algorithm—a population-based stochastic technique ideal for complex, high-dimensional energy system challenges. The optimizer minimizes total levelized electricity cost while satisfying hourly demand, with decision variables including installed photovoltaic capacity, pumped storage power and energy capacity, and cross-border transmission capacity.
Key Findings: Solar Dominance and Storage Solutions
The scenario framework spans twelve least-cost pathways, combining three electricity demand levels (2, 5, and 9 megawatt-hours per capita annually by 2050), two hydropower trajectories, and varying import conditions.
Under low demand with reference hydropower, hydroelectric generation satisfies most annual consumption with minimal solar and storage additions for daily balancing.
Under ambitious hydro scenarios, hydropower output of approximately 169 terawatt-hours yearly nearly eliminates photovoltaic and pumped storage requirements, potentially enabling seasonal electricity exports.
As demand rises, solar photovoltaics becomes the dominant energy source. Under high-demand reference hydro without imports, the model requires approximately 344 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity and 90 gigawatts of pumped storage with total storage capacity around 2,445 gigawatt-hours. With permitted electricity imports, photovoltaic capacity drops to about 235 gigawatts and pumped storage to 53 gigawatts.
Economic Implications and Regional Cooperation
Levelized electricity costs range from approximately 164 to 264 Tunisian dinars per megawatt-hour across scenarios, with import-enabled configurations consistently more economical than domestic-only systems.
Sensitivity analysis reveals that levelized cost is most sensitive to solar photovoltaic investment costs and discount rates. When discount rates rise from 2% to 10%, system costs escalate by nearly 38%—underscoring that financing conditions matter as much as technology costs for capital-intensive renewable systems.
Strategic imports through moderate interconnection capacity of roughly 10.5 to 12 gigawatts could ease domestic storage strain by 40% to 80%, aligning with similar findings from optimization studies in Bolivia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia.
Global Context and Policy Alignment
The study’s implications extend beyond Tunisia’s borders. The Global PHES Atlas has identified over 2,800 eligible off-river pumped storage sites worldwide with combined potential capacity approaching 50,000 gigawatt-hours—vastly exceeding the model’s upper-bound storage needs. Off-river development also reduces social and environmental impacts associated with conventional reservoir systems.
The findings support Tunisia’s long-term net-zero strategy, its Nationally Determined Contribution, and national development plans emphasizing renewable diversification, transmission expansion, and concessional financing. They also advance Sustainable Development Goal 7 on clean and affordable energy and Goal 13 on climate action.
A Template for Emerging Economies
The authors caution that results represent scenario-based planning pathways rather than deterministic forecasts. Future research should incorporate wind power, battery storage, green hydrogen, sector coupling, and climate-dependent hydrological variability.
Nevertheless, the message is clear: with supportive regulation, affordable financing, and integrated land-use planning, Tunisia’s abundant solar resource and emerging hydropower potential could deliver a resilient, fully renewable electricity system by mid-century—offering a replicable template for other emerging economies with low per capita consumption and rich renewable endowments.
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