Renewable Energy in Africa and Africa's energy access challenge

Africa’s energy access challenge

• The key challenges facing Africa’s power sector are inadequate generation capacity, limited electrification, low power consumption, unreliable services, high costs.
• The entire installed generation capacity of 48 Sub Saharan African countries is 68 gigawatts, no more than Spain’s
• Only 1 in 4 Africans has access to electricity
• 80 percent of the world’s 1.5 billion people without electricity live in mostly rural areas of SSA
• Chronic power shortages plague 30 African countries.
• The overall economic costs of power shortages typically range between one and four percent of GDP annually
• The ATC of producing power in Africa is exceptionally high: US$0.18 per kW/h with an average effective tariff of US $0.14 per kW/h when compared with tariffs of US$0.04 per kW/h in South Asia and $0.07 in East Asia.

Africa has many natural resources depending on the region:

• Nigeria is flaring gas without taking advantage of it.
• In Senegal coast wind energy could be developed because of wind Speed. It can achieve 5-6 m/s in some locations in the ECOWAS region.
• Inland, Hydro or Micro hydro can be developed (ECOWAS: 23.900 MW and 16% exploited)
• In Sub-Saharan Africa there are optimal conditions for the development of photovoltaic or solar thermal energy power (5-6 Kwh/m2/day).
• Furthermore although paradoxical,in Africa is found probably the largest concentration of Distributed Power Generation in the world, having more than twice the capacity that appears in the statistics, and that is because of the use of diesel generator groups of all sizes, Most of them oversized. To make them more energy efficient: cogeneration. Cold-Heat. This Distributed Generation is underexploited by the lack of regulation. The money comes when conditions are favorable so we need to give stability to the industry and minimize risks.

Efficient management of distributed generation in Africa today would open the door for distributed generation facilities with renewable energy tomorrow.

“The most ecological energy is that one that is never consumed”