Issue 124 • 19 October 2007

Can biomass-dependent Africa afford not to go green?

Two questions can be asked simultaneously about the development of energy capacity in Africa. Can developers afford to use modern, efficient, environmentally friendly technologies? And can they afford not to?

A decade ago, Africa tackled its lack of telephone landlines by embracing mobile technology on a huge scale, and now it has the potential to do the same with energy. East Africa’s new-found enthusiasm for relatively low-polluting gas-to-power schemes is one positive development, but more could be done to harness Africa’s solar, wind and geothermal potential.

In Ethiopia, as in a number of countries, some 90% of energy used is from biomass, basically trees. Women firewood carriers are bent double under their huge loads and the smell of wood smoke hangs heavily at night, even in the centre of Addis Ababa. In Uganda, the high cost of energy means that even urban, middle-class families are obliged to do some of their cooking on charcoal stoves. As well as causing deforestation, wood stoves cause respiratory diseases and burn injuries in children.

Clearly, something has to be done to halt the use of biomass as a primary energy source before all the trees are gone, not least because of the consequences of deforestation for rainfall and therefore hydropower, not to mention agriculture. Speaking at a seminar in Addis Ababa on biofuels, renewables and energy efficiency, Peter Oldacre, managing director of carbon asset management company Camco International’s Sub-Saharan Africa division, argued that there was no need for fast-growing African countries to start out with cheap, polluting technologies and then clean up later. “There’s no need to be a dumping ground for the West’s outdated technology,” he said.

As well as established schemes like off-grid solar, newer technologies like generating power from landfill gas, or producing biodiesel from drought-resistant jatropha could be ideal for Africa. Participants at the seminar, held on 18 September during Spintelligent’s East African Power Industry Convention, argued that a wider comparison of the total costs and impacts of different technologies might help to establish whether solutions like solar panels are really as unaffordable as is often argued now.

As the alarmist headlines about soaring food prices show, sustainability is key in developing biofuels in Africa. Jatropha is attractive because it can be grown on land unsuitable for food crops. Vecturis, the Belgian owner of Madagascar’s Madarail company which operates the 750km railway between Antananarivo and the port of Toamasina, has a project planting jatropha shrubs along the line, with the aim of converting its locomotives to run on biodiesel (AE 108/13).

Biofuels are very much in vogue; Frost and Sullivan analyst Cornelis van der Waal compared the hype surrounding the sector to the late 1990s dotcom boom in equity markets. He sees robust growth over the next five years as the market develops, and notes the example of Ghana, which is drawing on the expertise of countries like Brazil that have had success in developing biofuels, in order to avoid another cash crop crisis like those of the past.

Some schemes are looking to Africa to provide feedstock for European markets, while others aim at producing biodiesel for local consumption. In Democratic Republic of Congo, troubled power company Société Nationale de l’Electricité (Snel) now understands that even its massive hydropower reserves are not enough to provide solutions to all of DRC’s myriad energy problems. Snel rural electrification expert Emmanuel Ngoyi Malangu believes DRC’s considerable palm oil production – and much greater potential than the current 175,000 t/yr – can be harnessed to power off-grid generators, to bring stable electricity supplies to isolated off-grid centres in the (probably very long) period before they are finally connected to the national grid. Lever Brothers used palm oil to power their plantations in the 1980s, and a few pilot ventures involving local companies such as Gazopalm and Cozenol are under way. What is needed now, Ngoyi said in Kinshasa on 11 October, is a co-ordinated government strategy.

German Technical Co-operation (GTZ) regional energy advisor East Africa David Otieno conceded that cost was a significant challenge in the provision of green energy and urged governments to offer incentives as they have in Germany. “We have a moral obligation that will go into the generation to come,” he said. “Solar, wind, we have all these resources but we haven’t used them. All we need to go green is the political will.”

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