Search results

Its wealth of renewable energy resources, availability of land and proximity to markets mean Africa holds the key to Europe’s vision of a net zero future based on green hydrogen (GH2) use. The manufacture of carbon-free liquid fuels could also transform the continent, but project sponsors, financers and offtakers need to ensure this is done fairly, while contributing to economic and social development. The establishment of the European Hydrogen Bank can be a crucial step in that direction.

Much of the news flow ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow in November has been about which global leaders will turn up and what carbon reduction commitments they will make. Many in Africa are more concerned the least-developed continent will be forced to adopt ill-fitting policy straightjackets and forced to choose between rival superpower-led development models, most notably China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative (BRI) and the US-led Clean Green Initiative (CGI) and Build Back Better for the World (B3W) programmes.

Uncomfortable financial disputes are expected to dominate the 27th United Nations Climate Change (COP27) conference, to be held in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm El Sheikh on 6-18 November. African nations may achieve progress in some areas – perhaps by forcing the vexed question of compensation for loss and damage onto the agenda – but the meeting will likely once again fail to identify a way forward for electricity supply industries (ESIs) across the continent.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed triumphantly announced on 10 September that the fourth and final filling of the $4.2bn Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd) reservoir had been completed, raising the 74km3 reservoir’s water level to 625 metres; last year’s third filling had brought levels to 600 metres.

Publication of the 500th issue provides an opportunity to look back at a few triumphs and many missed opportunities in the industries African Energy has covered since it was launched in 1998. Industry and financial trends have evolved, and sometimes returned to haunt stakeholders years after they were thought to be history. One constant has been the huge increase in the continent’s population, which means the UN target of universal clean energy access is constantly pushed into the distance.

As Africa enters the 2020s, issues of climate change and sustainability have gained greater urgency even if not everyone agrees on the way ahead. With desertification and water shortages affecting many regions, Africa has joined the stop-start transition away from a carbon-based economy; the percentage of on- and off-grid renewables is growing in the energy mix, with solar, and to a lesser extent wind, taking a lead, promoted by large public procurement projects and ever more private initiatives.

Launched by President Barack Obama in Cape Town one year ago, the US Power Africa initiative has been making bold claims about its early successes in a campaign to boost sub-Saharan Africa’s installed generation capacity by some 10GW and connect some 20m more homes and businesses to the grid by 2020 (AE 258/5). Power Africa claims it will make some $7bn available in financial support and loan guarantees from 12 government agencies, led by the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), Overseas Private Investment Corporation and US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA).

While renewables projects in North Africa have been making progress – led by Moroccan solar development agency Masen’s 125MW first concentrated solar power phase of the 500MW Ouarzazate scheme – the most highly publicised, ambitious scheme of all, the Desertec Industrial Initiative (Dii), is struggling to convince sceptics it can revolutionise patterns of electricity generation south of the Mediterranean and of supply within the European Union area.

A significant market is emerging across the continent for renewables-based commercial and industrial (C&I) energy projects. In all but a handful of markets, the talk is of a potential that will soon be measured in gigawatts, rather than the usual dozens (at most) of megawatts of an established business. As Kenya-based Astonfield Solar’s chairman Ameet Shah puts it, the technology is still in its early days – as in some cases is the quality of its delivery to clients – but the C&I industry will reach lift-off even before the ‘transformational’ 24-hour storage becomes the norm.

Africa is expected to be a driver of global growth in coming decades, but its nature will be different from that predicted when emerging markets boomed and investors saw an escape from stagnant developed economies in apparently untapped markets. A realistic view is that there are likely to be more pockets of prosperity around the continent, and economies such as China will continue to grow, albeit less quickly. But how to plan for the future in a deeply uncertain environment?

There is consensus on the need to scale up renewables, off-grid, combined-cycle gas and other generation schemes if sub-Saharan Africa is to overcome its gaping electricity supply and access deficits (see Power). Huge investment is required to create transmission backbones and commercially sustainable distribution networks. To achieve these ambitious aims, ever more institutions and initiatives are looking to marry public funds with private investment. But there is another category of stakeholder, which has an essential role to play as offtaker and focal point of the electricity supply industry but whose performance often falls short: national utilities.

If any reality check is needed to counter overly optimistic Africa Rising narratives, or as a reminder of how far the continent’s more troubled regions remain from meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, then crisis in the Lake Chad Basin provides it. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari spoke too soon when he promised Boko Haram would be defeated by end-2015. Under new leadership, the Nigerian military has raised its performance, tackling corruption that undermined its efforts, while battling the jihadist challenge in the north-east.

Kenya’s incoming government will do well to learn from previous efforts to reform the electricity supply industry. It will be guided by a new energy white paper, which offers a roadmap to 2040 and which could help Kenya move towards upper-middle-income status. African Energy usually writes its own Views, but such is the plan’s importance that we asked a prominent industry player to assess the proposals and the industry’s direction of travel. The writer has asked to remain anonymous so as not to prejudice their position.

The most abundant element on earth, hydrogen, already has industrial uses, but it could do much more to transform the global energy mix as industrialised economies and the global south decarbonise. Judged by the welter of governmental and corporate statements, hydrogen is featuring large in the thoughts of planners and project promoters. These range from Chinese hydrocarbons giant Sinopec’s plans to reallocate some of its Rmb87bn ($13bn) cash pile to projects “all along the hydrogen chain” to Australian junior miner AVZ Minerals’ green lithium mine project at Manono in Democratic Republic of Congo.

Too often ignored except in times of extreme crisis, Lesotho is looking to emerge from years of political instability and economic malaise under previous coalition governments, as the Basotho population counts on newly-elected tycoon Prime Minister Sam Matekane to usher in transformative change.