The United States, China, India, Japan, and Europe
all fit within Africa, a continent that lags behind
those places in development. When it comes to energy
and electricity, this lack of infrastructure or institutionalized
energy systems offers some opportunities for renewable
sources of energy to enter into a market that is
struggling to meet demand.
The International Renewable Energy Agency recently
said that Africa’s renewable energy capacity
is expected to quadruple to about 120 gigawatts by
2030 if “investors dedicate substantial flows
of funds to the region,” according to Bloomberg
Businessweek.
The vast and varied landscape of Africa includes
some of the best solar and wind resources in the
world. On top of that, a World Bank report released
this week found that Sub-Saharan Africa could provide
more than 170 gigawatts of additional power-generation
capacity — more than double the region’s
current installations — through 3,200 “low-carbon” energy
projects, such as combined heat-and-power, biofuels
production, mass transportation, and energy efficiency.
The report found that these projects could avoid
some 740 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent
reductions each year.
“
The energy deficit in Sub-Saharan Africa is enormous,” Dana
Rysankova, senior energy specialist in the World
Bank’s Africa Region, said in a statement. “The
total generation capacity of the whole Sub-Saharan
Africa is lower than that of Spain. 500 million
people still lack access to electricity. It is
estimated
that the African countries will need to spend at
least six percent of their GDP on energy over the
next 10 years to keep up with their economic growth.”
In an op-ed this week, Jasandra Nyker, Chief Executive
Officer of BioTherm Energy, a renewable energy
investment and independent project development
platform focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, argues
that renewable energy is the way out of poverty
for many Africans. She says that a lack of competitive
financing and not enough private investment in
innovative technologies are what’s holding
African countries back. She writes that “every
country needs to adapt to renewable energy:”
There is a perception that renewables are difficult
and expensive to deploy. In order to get rid
of the noise in the system, we need the commitment
of finance and energy ministers and their departments
to meet and learn the lessons of other countries
like Spain, Italy and the UK.
Renewables are the way forward for Africa, and
have the potential to power the whole of the
continent. But policy certainty and regulation
will be crucial
for the industry to attract investment and grow.
Africa also has significant oil and gas reserves,
most of which are produced for export to the
countries listed at the top of this article with
China and
the U.S. leading the demand. According to the
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Sub-Saharan
Africa produced nearly 6 million bbl/d of liquid
fuels in 2012, about seven percent of total world
oil production. Nigeria was the fourth-largest
liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter in the world
in 2012, accounting for eight percent of total
LNG exports worldwide. So while Africa may be
able
to steer itself toward a renewable future, the
nature of the global energy economy demands that
all countries take action in reducing fossil
fuel demand.