By NJ Ayuk
Vilifying fossil fuels seems to come easily to many people these days. That includes UN Secretary General António Guterres, who recently associated them with war, pollution, and climate catastrophe. The only true path toward peace in the 21st century, he said, is an accelerated renewables-based energy transition, and African gas exploration be damned in the process. In fact, he claimed that exploring for gas and oil anywhere in the world is “delusional.”
That’s pretty strong language from a man whose native Portugal produces 4.34 metric tons of CO2 emissions per capita – more than twice that of Brazil, which has 20 times more people, and more than five times the per capita total of the entire continent of Africa.
Don’t get me wrong: the African Energy Chamber absolutely supports renewables. To meet the climate targets set out in the Paris agreement Africa must radically change its energy landscape, and that means increasing our renewables capacity.
But when Guterres and others call for an immediate or even rapid energy transition, they are forgetting that a one-size-fits-all solution isn’t possible. As we point out in our recently released report, “The State of African Energy: 2023 Outlook,” (https://bit.ly/3DTE8PT) many factors determine the pace of energy transition in each individual country: its current dependence on fossil fuels, its existing industrial productivity, its future technology choices, the depth and diversity of its domestic supply chains — and, of course, its current renewables generation capacity. In that regard, Africa is a small fish in a big pond. Asia, Europe, and the United States all have considerably more investment in renewables than we do, whether we’re talking about solar PV or onshore wind power. In fact, as our 2023 Outlook notes, Asia, Europe, and the United States are the top three producers of solar and wind power, with about 90% of total overall volumes. By contrast, Africa’s volumes are a mere 1% – 2% of the total.
Does that mean we have a long way to go? It does, and parity with Asia, Europe, or the U.S. isn’t something anyone can reasonably expect. Their head start is just too significant and asking us to catch up anytime soon is, dare we say, delusional.
But it’s not impossible for Africa to build on its modest achievements. In fact, while our capacity to produce renewables is currently in the moderate range, our 2023 Outlook expects it to expand, spread across the continent, and also venture into hydrogen. Projections are that by the end of the decade, Africa’s renewables capacity will be 150GW. That’s five times what it is right now — which looks like progress by any measure.
Where We Are Now
To understand where we’re headed — and how we’ll get there — we have to recognize where we are.
The 2023 Outlook forecasts that by year-end 2022, Africa’s solar PV capacity should be about 12.6GW (or 2% of global volume. Onshore wind capacity will be at 10GW (1% of global volume), and hydrogen at sub-0.5GW (