At the same time, African countries can harness the power of renewable energy, which has emerged as a technologically viable and economically attractive alternative to fossil fuels, and avoid being locked into a dependency on fossil fuel energy. This study focuses on the electricity sector, which is responsible for the largest share of energy-related emissions in Africa.
Additionally, in the long run, building robust, green electricity sectors across the continent will also enable the decarbonisation of energy end-use sectors, such as transport and industry. The technical and commercial solutions required to provide universal access to reliable and affordable electricity from sustainable power systems across Africa are at hand.
This piece explores the existing structural barriers to such a renewable energy transition on the continental and regional levels, and lays out how African governments and their development partners can address these in order to enable a sustainable energy future. Country snapshots provide insights into the prospects for energy transition in 13 selected African countries, along with detailed deep dives into the transformational potential in 5 of these countries.
Seizing the opportunity for and benefits of a renewable energy transition will require political will for sector reform, including a coherent, unified approach to the promotion of renewable energy and energy access, and an effective approach to dealing with the political-economic and distributional challenges such transformations engender. This study outlines a pathway for African governments, continental and regional organisations, and their development partners to join forces in a new, concerted approach to achieving a comprehensive energy transition across Africa, powering energy access, resilience and prosperity.
Around half of Africa’s total population (548 million people) were without access to electricity in 2018 (IEA et al., 2020; World Bank, n.d.). In the same year, 900 million people on the African continent relied on traditional use of biomass – such as charcoal and firewood – as their primary source of energy for cooking.
Most of these people live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, African businesses – from micro-enterprises to agriculture to industry – are held back by the lack of a reliable, affordable energy supply. Unless these challenges are addressed in a concerted manner, they will only intensify, as estimates indicate that the population will increase by one billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa and almost 100 million in Northern Africa by the year 2050 (World Bank, 2019a).
Only a few select electricity sectors on the continent have greenhouse gas emissions comparable to those of developed economies. In fact, the total contribution of electricity generation in Africa to climate change at this stage is actually modest compared to any other region in the world. Combined emissions from fossil fuel use in Africa made up only 3.6 per cent of the global total in 2017, even though the continent hosts nearly 17 per cent of the world´s population (IEA, 2019b). If the four countries with the highest absolute emissions (South Africa, Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria) are removed from the equation, the remaining African countries accounted for only 1 per cent of global carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions. Nevertheless, investments in modern, efficient power systems are crucial to ensuring that Africa can harness the potential of renewable energy and avoid a potential lock-in to fossil fuel energy.
In Africa, a low-carbon pathway is not simply a matter of replacing polluting electricity sources with renewables, but rather creating new power systems based on efficiency, renewables, and flexible and decentralised (including off-grid) infrastructure, thus preventing a scenario in which growing demand is met with fossil fuel sources. Market forces may do some of the work here, as the cost of renewables has now dropped below grid parity in many instances – but more will need to be done. In this regard, it is worth noting that while Africa has contributed little to global CO2 emissions, it will be among the continents most impacted by climate change.
A Guest Editorial