The sun is also rising on African energy

Today, in 2022, in sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 600 million people still do not have access to electricity. Despite the progress made in terms of electrification, achieving the 7th UN Sustainable Development Goal remains a challenge¹. And “with the Covid crisis, the number of people without access to electricity has increased by 4% whereas it had been decreasing steadily since 2013”, outlines Arnaud Rouget, Africa programme manager at the International Energy Agency (IEA).

In addition, another major issue arises daily: limited access to clean, sustainable cooking methods. “It is very urgent because nearly 80% of African households do not benefit from electricity and use wood collected in the forest or charcoal”, says Harriet Okwi, energy access manager at Enea Consulting. This traditional use of biomass leads to indoor air pollution, which is the cause of 500,000 premature deaths per year according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and contributes to ongoing environmental degradation.
Demographic factors also have to be taken into account: according to the UN, the population of the sub-Saharan region will almost double by 2050, reaching 2.1 billion with 60% of it concentrated in cities and urban conglomerations. This strong demographic growth and the economic transformation of the continent will lead to a considerable increase in the demand for energy, which will grow twice as fast as the world average by 2040 according to the IEA.

Economic development hampered

At a time of accelerating global warming, we need to quantify how decisive the response to Africa’s energy needs will be for the prosperity as well as the sustainability of the global energy system. “It is imperative that the emergence of new energy production capacity is encouraged to enable development. This remains the number one issue in African countries, which have contributed little to greenhouse gas emissions but which will be the first victims of the effects of climate change”, observes Vincent Kientz, a partner at Enea Consulting. We must indeed “put things into perspective”, underlines Damilola Ogunbiyi, special representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, who recalls that the installed electricity production capacity of sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, is only 81 gigawatts (130Gw with South Africa), which is comparable to that of Germany, yet this capacity has to serve more than a billion people!²

The lack of access to modern energy services, particularly electricity, but also their unreliability when existing at all, hinders the economic development of the continent and its ambitions for industrialisation. As Hugo Le Picard, researcher at the Energy and Climate Center of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI) points out, the weakness of the sub-Saharan electricity network infrastructure has a considerable, negative effect on its associated economies, representing on average a cost of between 1 to 5% of the national GDP, depending on the country. “About 80% of African companies suffer from frequent outages and point to the poor quality of a service for which they are forced to pay dearly”, specifies Myriam Fournier Kacimi, founding president of Sungy³, a company committed to developing solar photovoltaic energy in Africa. And Thomas Chevillotte, Africa manager of Enea Consulting, enumerates the difficulties facing these transmission and distribution networks: obsolescence, under-investment in maintenance, technical losses, and theft due to illegal connections.

In order to realise this scenario, investments in clean energy will need to be multiplied by a factor of five by 2030 compared to their current levels. Unachievable? This growth represents less than 5% of the clean energy investments needed globally under the “zero emissions” scenario, according to the IEA. “We need to pick up the pace, argues Damilola Ogunbiyi, that’s why we need money from philanthropy, development institutions, financial institutions, governments, all coming together to look for creative solutions that will ensure that no one will be left behind when it comes to access to energy”.

The potential of renewable energies

Thanks to its enormous potential in renewable energies (solar, wind, hydro) and technological progress, it is possible Africa could follow a low carbon development model, while also considering the available opportunities on a case-by-case basis due to the diversity of its 54 countries. Positive signals are emerging. “South Africa’s commitment to leading a just transition to a low-carbon economy inspired the whole world in Glasgow during COP 26”, writes Rémy Rioux, Director General of the French Development Agency (AFD)⁶. France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union have pledged to help South Africa phase out the use of coal for its electricity production.

For its part, China announced that it would no longer finance new coal-fired power plants abroad, during the United Nations General Assembly in September 2021. This decision could affect several African countries, such as Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, for which the construction of such power plants is one of the solutions envisaged to reduce the deficit in energy access. For now, coal, natural gas and oil together represent about 70% of total electricity production in Africa. Natural gas, being less polluting, is at “a turning point”⁷. A series of major gas discoveries have recently taken place⁸, so for many African leaders, gas represents a trump card in the production of electricity. “Countries like Senegal or Côte d’Ivoire either exploit this resource directly or are going to create gas-fired power stations”, observes Jean-Pierre Favennec, president of the Association for the Development of Energy in Africa (ADEA), responding in particular to the challenge of the industrialisation of African countries which requires a stable energy supply.

Renewable energy can go a long way in helping African countries overcome their structural dependencies on fossil fuels, as highlighted in the recent report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) and the African Development Bank (AfDB)⁹. But they attract too little funding. Of the $2.8 billion invested in renewables worldwide between 2000 and 2020, only 2% went to Africa and despite its enormous potential in this area, the continent only represents 3% of the world’s installed renewable electricity generation capacity. “Strong political commitment, a fair and equitable energy transition framework and massive investments are necessary”, underlined Kevin Kariuki, vice-president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), in charge of electricity, energy, climate and green growth, when the report was presented in January 2022. The report argues for an African “Green New Deal” that could boost GDP by 6.4% and create 26 million jobs by 2050.