Page 4 - AfrElec Week 22 2022

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec

Renewables, not gas, key to

Africa’s power future

AFRICA RENEWABLE energy is the key to driving eco- Investment in renewable energy value chains
nomic development in Africa, rather than natu- can unlock significant co-benefits for local
ral gas, offering lower costs, more employment, development by growing the economy and creat-
a more sustainable future and better economic ing more and potentially higher-quality employ-
diversification. ment opportunities. Such investment chains are
Climate Action Tracker said in its recent expected to create around 36% of new jobs until
Natural Gas in Africa report that current energy 2050.
systems based on biomass and fossil fuels are Approximately 52% of primary energy in
both insufficient and inadequate to meeting the Africa is supplied by fossil fuels, and 45% by
growing demand for access to clean energy and biomass. The remaining energy supply is mostly
sustainable economic development. covered by hydropower. Solar and wind contrib-
Continuing with fossil fuels, such as gas in ute less than 1% of primary energy supply on the
Nigeria and coal in South Africa, comes with continent.
multiple risks and disadvantages, beyond accel- Fossil fuels have supplied about 80% of
erating the climate emergency. electricity in the last decade. Renewables have
To reduce destructive global reliance on fos- started growing more recently, currently gen-
sil fuels, developed countries and development erating about 3% of electricity on average. It is
banks urgently need to stop financing all fossil important to note large variations by country –
fuel projects and significantly ramp up interna- for example, Ethiopia’s electricity grid is supplied
tional climate finance and support for the energy exclusively by hydropower, solar and wind, and
transition in developing countries. is largely biomass-based for non-electric energy
Climate Action Tracker said that the extrac- use.
tion, transportation and use of natural gas is lim-
ited in time and includes significant economic Gas power plans
and societal risks. Many African countries are considering the
The argument of providing affordable energy expansion – or building of – natural gas-related
quickly through fossil fuels no longer holds, infrastructure.
as renewable energy technology has become According to the Global Energy Monitor,
cost-competitive, even without a carbon price. there are currently 16 operating gas fields in
Electricity generation based on renewable Africa (most of which are in Egypt and Nige-
energy has become cost-competitive, at least for ria), one in development (in Egypt) and 19
new installations and sometimes even for replac- discovered (most of which are in Tanzania and
ing existing fossil-based generation. Mozambique). Additionally, there are seven
The report concluded that renewables are fields with both oil and gas extraction that have
cost-effective, and can support sustainable job been discovered or are in development in Africa,
creation across Africa. on top of the 150 already in operation (Global
Abundant renewable energy resources are Energy Monitor, 2022b).
not only sufficient to cover the increasing energy There are also about 22,000 km of planned
demand in Africa, but they could also contrib- gas pipelines in Africa, most which are located
ute to creating new value chains, such as through in South Africa, Mozambique and Nigeria. There
renewable electricity or green hydrogen exports are also significant plans to build LNG export
(ibid). capacities (for a total of 60mn tonnes per year)
For African countries, employment poten- and LNG import capacities (around 20mn tpy),
tials in the emerging renewable energy industry as depicted in Figure 4.
are attractive. In the electricity generation sector, there are
By 2030, job gains from solar PV, wind, 55 GW of new gas power plants in development
hydropower, as well as bioenergy in Africa (proposed or under construction) in Africa,
could amount to around 4.8mn short-term jobs most of which are in South Africa (13 GW) and
and 370,000 medium to long-term employment Nigeria (15 GW).™
opportunities.

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