In sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of people don’t have access to electricity. But power usage is projected to double by 2040. Experts are wondering how green energy can replace fossil fuels in this growth spurt.
Africa has the potential to become a renewable powerhouse. With much of it bathed in sunlight year-round, the continent has 60% of the world’s best solar resources. And it has enough wind potential in a year to meet its electricity demand 250 times over, with resources stretching all the way from Algeria to South Africa.
Countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia already cover more than 80% of their consumption with hydropower — but there is room to produce even more across the continent. Meanwhile, Kenya is a world leader in harnessing geothermal energy.
Though the use of clean power varies greatly across Africa, the continent as a whole still gets almost all of its energy from fossil fuels. As half of the population in sub-Saharan Africa doesn’t have access to electricity, there are hundreds of millions of customers waiting to enter the market.
Other continents electrified off the back of coal, oil, and gas and, to different extents, are now trying to transition to renewables. Could Africa skip fossil fuels and service new consumers with green energy?
Renewables also provide flexibility in a region where electricity grids often don’t reach rural populations — and if they do, they are expensive. The solution: Rooftop solar panels or mini-grids that can work independently and provide enough to power lights and a phone charger.
Not enough money or political will
But there are numerous obstacles hindering the growth of green technologies in Africa. Not least funding. In the last two decades, just 2% of global investments into green energy were made across the continent.
When diversifying the energy mix, there are also issues around the costs of importing equipment from abroad. And though many countries have made steep learning curves with solar, this technology still makes up less than 1% of total energy production and needs to be expanded for the expertise to grow more.
But experts say one of the greatest obstacles to tackle is a lack of political will. Where foreign commentators see the risk of ever-growing pollution, many African politicians see the opportunity to develop the same way that all other continents did. They say their countries’ emissions will always be a long way from those of the US, China and European nations.
Locked into a carbon-intensive future?
A team of researchers from Oxford University built a machine learning model which found that the continent is unlikely to wean itself off fossil fuels this decade. Looking at projects currently in the pipeline, their 2021 study found that two thirds of power is likely to come from fossil fuels by 2030. About 18% should come from hydro projects and less than 10% from other renewables.
Source: Deutsche Welle
