In his book “Hot, Flat and crowded,” Thomas Friedman rightly identified one of the five problems that a hot, flat and crowded world is facing as energy poverty; which he said, “is sharply dividing the world into electricity haves and electricity have-nots.” Africa is energy poor. An African uses only one eleventh, one sixth, and one half of the energy used by a North American, a European, and a Latin American, respectively. This situation has diminished the continent’s productive capacity. According to Friedman; “in an increasingly flat world, if you don’t have electricity you cannot get online and you cannot compete, connect and collaborate globally, and increasingly, even locally.”

Sub-Saharan Africa depends largely on inefficient traditional biomass used mainly for cooking and heating water in households. Traditional biomass accounts for over 80% of primary energy demands. These sources of energy, for example, fire wood and charcoal burn inefficiently, giving rise to energy loss. The surrounding environment is also degraded, through the depletion of forest resources. Pollutants (carbon monoxide, benzene, nitrogen oxides, etc), which are also health damaging substances are emitted when these form of energy sources are used indoors. In Sub-Saharan Africa, deaths from indoor air pollution arising from burning of biomass fuels are substantial.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is already looking beyond the era of fossil fuel by investing in renewable energy technology, creating new jobs and helping reduce the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Will the sub-continent wake up one day and find itself behind again in catching up with the rest of the world? Are regional governments reviewing subsidies, regulatory framework and supporting sustainable energy solution?

Challenges and sustainability question

There exists an urgent need for action that would address the enormous challenges faced by most metropolitan cities and rural dwellers in Sub Saharan Africa, which is how to supply fairly undisrupted electricity. Sub-Saharan Africa’s rural areas pose specific challenges. Because of low population density and remote location of these villages in Sub-Saharan Africa, the cost of production and transmission of electricity is very high. Again, the consumers have limited income or resources to pay, implying that revenues fail to cover operating and maintenance costs. As a result, energy poverty persists.

There is an ongoing debate about the extent to which Sub-Saharan African consumers understand conversion efficiencies of alternative technologies and are acting on this understanding. In developed countries, concerns that consumers don’t have insufficient information to choose among energy conversion equipment have led to adoption of energy efficiency standards for household equipment, such as refrigerators.

In Sub-Saharan Africa however, there are fewer choices. Talk about fuel efficient cars and appliances are constrained by high cost and dumping of old-cheaper fuel guzzling cars and electrical appliances on the continents poor. A challenge that is not been appropriately addressed in Sub-Saharan Africa is the efficient supply and use of electricity, which takes account of technological changes and innovation, improving operation and maintenance standards and information disseminated from stakeholders. The role of Government is therefore to insist on the adoption of these efficiency “enabling factors” in any new licensing processes.

Energy supply is given as a target indicator for achieving the seventh objective of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which is to ensure environmental sustainability. Since Africa possesses some of the world’s largest watercourses (hydro-potential), as well as some of the world’s largest oil, coal and gas reserves, the way to achieve the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) vision is for countries to find cheaper power sources while minimizing environmental hazards and ensuring sustainability. Energy expert believes that solar and wind power; clean and renewable, fits the bill.

But at present, the financing of energy schemes is non-existing, inadequate and not predictable. Current estimates put the order of magnitude required in the next 12 years to 2020, as US$ 3.0 billion per annum. Also, funding in the energy sector is on project by project basis as opposed to a financing strategy for the longer term and within set national and regional programs. Long-term solutions to energy poverty are simply unthinkable without adequate access to investment. If anything, experience from developed countries shows that market incentives and business innovation can provide new pathways for energy poverty solutions. There is the need to maximize entrepreneurship, transfer skills and capacities and encourage public-private partnerships.

It can be said that the key challenge facing Africa is not to increase energy consumption per se, but to ensure access to cleaner energy services, preferably through energy efficiency and renewable energy thus promoting sustainable consumption. Unlike most industrialized countries which progressed from traditional energy to unsustainable conventional energy consumption patterns and which are now struggling to move to a sustainable energy path, Africa could and should in a number of sectors, leapfrog directly from current traditional energy consumption patterns to sustainable energy options. There is thus, an urgent need for substantial increases in energy consumption in Africa as a whole if Africa is to be competitive with other developing regions of the world.

Churchill Okonkwo is a MS student of Environmental Science at the American University Washington DC. Churchill.okonkwo@gmail.com

Robot  # 1 | 13.02.2009 08:04

In his book “Hot, Flat and crowded,” Thomas Friedman rightly identified one of the five problems that a hot, flat and crowded world is facing as energy poverty; which he said, “is sharply dividing the world into electricity haves and electricity have-nots.” Africa is energy poor. An African uses only one eleventh, one sixth, and one half of the energy used by a North American, a European, and a Latin American, respectively. This situation has diminished the continent’s productive capacity. According to Friedman; “in an increasingly flat world, if you don’t have electricity you cannot get online and you cannot compete, connect and collaborate globally, and increasingly, even locally.” Sub-Saharan Africa depends largely on inefficient traditional biomass used mainly for cooking and heating water in households. Traditional biomass accounts for over 80% of primary energy demands. These sources of energy, for example, f...Read the full article.