With its 1.5 billion people and the world’s youngest population, Africa is in a decisive phase in its energy story. The power demand is rising fast, but the question is whether that demand will be met by fossil fuels or by renewables, a choice that could define the continent’s future growth.
As Sidi Ould Tah takes office as the African Development Bank’s fifth president, UN Secretary-General António Guterres framed the challenge before him in clear terms: steering investment in Africa’s renewable energy, which he described as “the economic opportunity of the century.”
Data backs up his assertion. The energy situation in Africa is full of promise. For instance, Africa’s solar energy potential is an estimated 482,216 GW, while wind energy’s capacity stands at about 71,778 GW.
Leo Echard, Policy Officer at Global Solar Council and lead author of “African Market Outlook for Solar PV: 2025-2028”, highlighted that “There is no shortage of excellent solar resources and political ambition in Africa. Many projects are struggling to secure financing because of high interest rates, currency risks, and lack of guarantees. If we can reduce the cost of capital, Africa could become one of the fastest-growing solar markets in the world.”
Millions in Africa still live without electricity
Yet, despite this vast potential, when the availability of transmission line infrastructures is considered, that is, areas not more than 10km from transmission lines, Africa’s solar energy capacity drops to 69,895 GW, while wind energy’s potential drops to 8,738 GW. Inadequate transmission infrastructure notwithstanding, this renewable energy potential surpasses the electricity demand under renewable energy, and would require less than one per cent of Africa’s total land.
Despite these promising statistics, approximately 720 million people, which is half of Africa’s population, reside far from existing transmission lines, cutting them off from access to electricity. Indeed, this disparity is more evident in rural compared to urban populations, with 78 per cent of people in sub-Saharan urban areas having access to electricity as compared to only 28 per cent in rural areas.
Data from the June 2022 African Common Position on Energy Access and Energy Transition Technical paper indicates that the sub-continent gets 0.01 per cent of its energy supply from wind, 2 per cent from solar, about 4-5 per cent from geothermal, 17 per cent from hydro and 77 per cent from fossil fuel.
Uptake of solar power: a bottom-up approach
Against this necessity, there is a surge in demand for off-grid solutions -largely citizen-driven, addressing the needs of households and individuals who cannot afford or access reliable electricity. Another contributing factor is the cost of electricity. While there is no centralised data to determine the scale of this uptake, a new Ember report shows that the last 12 months saw a big rise in Africa’s solar panel imports. “Imports from China, a good proxy for total imports, rose 60 per cent in the last 12 months to 15,032 MW,” the report offers.
In 2023, during the inaugural Africa Climate Summit (ACS1) hosted by Kenya, the continent’s leaders unified and rallied for international support to scale renewable energy capacity to 300 GW by 2030. This, the Nairobi Declaration stated, would “address energy poverty and bolster the global supply of cost-effective clean energy for industry.”
To drive this ambition, at COP28, in Dubai, the Accelerated Partnership for Renewables in Africa (APRA) was launched and consists of 10 African countries including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zimbabwe, with support from international partners such as Denmark, Germany, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates.
The intersection of climate change and health
The adoption of renewable energy by African communities, experts say, is not just an energy solution, but a healthy one too. Air pollution, which scientists say was partly contributed to by dirty cooking fuels and coal was the second leading risk factor for deaths across Africa in 2020, claiming 1.1 million lives, with 63 per cent of the deaths attributed to household air pollution.
This negative impact also creeps into the quality of life, with African countries like Somalia and Niger seeing their life expectancies reduced by three years. Further, The Lancet notes that the burden of household air pollution was credited for 4,044 disability-adjusted life years per 100,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa– the highest rate in the world, i.e. four per cent of healthy years lost as a result of household air pollution. Economically, the transition to renewable energy has a positive impact on households’ earnings, with a study done in Kenya showing that adoption of LED lamps saw a decline in monthly spending by 193 Kenyan Shillings (USD 1.5).
The rise of renewable energy in Africa is complex: pockets of remarkable growth exist alongside persistent gaps and policy hurdles.
“Access to clean energy improves and brightens people’s lives by driving progress across all sectors, including livelihoods, food sovereignty, health, manufacturing, industry and innovation. Africa’s abundant, untapped renewable energy resources, not dirty fossil fuels, are the key to the historical problem of lack of access to electricity by millions of Africans, says Omar Elmawi, Convenor, Africa Climate Movement Building Space. Yet, he adds, the vision is only achievable “only if it is done right and with the African people at the heart of the mission.”
Policy barriers and financial constraints
In his reflection, Abay Yimere, Postdoctoral Scholar in International Environment and Resource Policy, The Fletcher School, Tufts University, faults policy barriers and the debt-laden climate finance mechanism for the development and uptake of renewable energy projects in Africa. The abundance of critical mineral reserves like lithium and cobalt ought to be factored into the quest for Africa’s expansion of its renewable energy capacity.
“The continent has the potential to become a key player in the global battery storage market. African countries must, therefore, invest in local manufacturing capacity, including building factories for battery production and developing the expertise needed to maintain and repair storage systems,” says Karabo Mokgonyana, Campaigner at Don’t Gas Africa.
