I dined lately with Joe, a Nigerian who manages a 400-hectare rice farm within the north of his nation. Nigeria imports about 2.4 million metric tons of rice yearly, based on the U.S. Division of Agriculture. Farmers like Joe are serving to to maneuver his nation of 237 million individuals towards self-sufficiency in rice.
However farmer Joe has a handicap. “For me, the ability grid is a fiction,” he says. “I don’t get any electrical energy from the grid, and I by no means will.”
5 years in the past, Joe put in photo voltaic panels to energy his farm’s irrigation system, which pulls water from a close-by river. His milling and bagging machines, in the meantime, nonetheless run on diesel turbines. When Nigeria ended its fuel subsidy in 2023, Joe’s gasoline prices soared, lowering the cash he can put money into extra land and different enhancements.
What’s holding again Africa’s electrification?
Joe’s predicament isn’t distinctive. In sub-Saharan Africa, 600 million individuals—about 53 p.c—nonetheless have no access to electricity. Even this grim statistic understates the issue, as a result of “entry” can imply simply sufficient wattage to light up just a few LED lightbulbs among the time. It’s not what Western Europeans or North People would take into account electrical energy.
And traditional power grids in sub-Saharan Africa are hampered by poor reliability and frequent outages. Even when supplied electrical energy, many shoppers can’t afford to pay, and so theft of service is endemic. The place grids do exist, “they’re outdated, unstable, and lack buyer connections,” the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reported in 2023.
“I’m a bit uninterested in imprecise measures of entry if that entry doesn’t translate into the potential for substantial enhancements and will increase in consumption,” says Christopher D. Gore, a professor of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University, who research electrical energy utilization within the area. “Our newest analysis exhibits that [sub-Saharan] households are blissful to have any electrical gentle however stay dissatisfied with the minimal provide, the worth, and the standard of each grid and solar energy.”
The electrical energy deficit might be worsening. In a 2024 report on universal energy access in Africa, researchers from the Center for Strategic & International Studies, in Washington, D.C., concluded that “demand is considerably outstripping provide, and the vitality disaster is deepening.”
To handle this dire scarcity, the World Bank and the African Development Bank introduced an initiative final 12 months known as Mission 300, to deliver electrical energy to 300 million individuals in sub-Saharan Africa—about half the quantity who lack entry now—by 2030. Such a fast enlargement means bringing electrical energy to a further 4.2 million individuals each month on common.
Whereas believable, the enlargement faces headwinds, most notably from the sub-Saharan’s internet inhabitants achieve of about 2.5 million individuals per thirty days. If that inhabitants development continues for all six years of the initiative, there might be a further 180 million individuals requiring electrical energy entry.
“The problem is giant. Africa’s inhabitants is projected to double by 2050,” says Barry MacColl, a senior regional supervisor on the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), who covers Africa from Johannesburg. “Increasing nationwide grids will be costly and sluggish, particularly in rural and distant areas, the place a lot of the unelectrified individuals stay.” For instance, South Africa’s primary utility, Eskom Holdings, estimates it might want to spend 390 billion rand (US $22 billion) over the following decade to develop and improve its getting old energy grid and stop future blackouts.
Giant variations in electrical energy entry persist amongst and inside African international locations. In keeping with a 2020 report from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, within the East, West, and Southern African areas, about half the individuals have entry to electrical energy, however the share falls to a mere 30 p.c in Central Africa, the place practically 100 million people haven’t any electrical energy entry. And according to the World Bank, about 82 p.c of city residents had electrical energy entry in 2023, however solely 33 p.c in rural areas. (The North African international locations aren’t a part of the sub-Saharan area, and, apart from Libya, have electrification charges of one hundred pc.)
Off-grid photo voltaic’s untapped potential in Africa
Fossil fuels nonetheless play an enormous function in Africa’s energy technology. Pure fuel is the only largest supply of electrical energy technology, whereas coal is critical solely in South Africa. Collectively, they account for roughly two-thirds of the continent’s electrical energy manufacturing, based on BloombergNEF. Whereas new gas-fired crops proceed to be constructed, the pattern is shifting towards renewable vitality sources.
An electronics store in Kenya sells photo voltaic panels. Off-grid photo voltaic has been an enormous a part of the nation’s profitable push to extend electrical energy entry.James Wakibia/SOPA Photos/LightRocket/Getty Photos
Small-scale off-grid applied sciences, particularly solar energy, are extensively seen because the strongest path to increasing electrical energy entry to rural communities and underserved city areas. UNCTAD estimates that Africa has 60 p.c of the world’s greatest international photo voltaic assets. That interprets to a photo voltaic potential of over 10 terawatts. “Off-grid photo voltaic and storage is taking off in an enormous method,” says Sonia Dunlop, CEO of the Global Solar Council in London. “There are already about 600 million individuals, nearly all in sub-Saharan Africa, who use off-grid photo voltaic and storage a minimum of as soon as every week.” Dunlop expects to see a 40 p.c enhance in photo voltaic installations subsequent 12 months within the area.
Off-grid solar energy lends itself to bottom-up bootstrapping in rural areas by communities, small farms, companies, and residential prospects. To make the expertise extra inexpensive, the enlargement of microfinancing might be key, as Mwoya Byaro and Nanzia Florent Mmbaga level out in a 2022 study in Scientific African.
I do know firsthand the distinction off-grid photo voltaic could make. My Nigerian-born spouse and I personal a walled compound of three houses in southern Nigeria, the place members of her household stay. We lately put in photo voltaic lights atop 5-meter-tall poles. They now illuminate communal areas that have been previously darkish at night time. The compound and the neighborhood aren’t related to the grid, although, so for indoor electrical energy, our family members nonetheless depend on diesel turbines.
The way forward for hydropower in sub-Saharan Africa
Whereas off-grid photo voltaic might deliver electrical energy to hundreds of thousands of individuals, hydropower is “Africa’s renewable-electricity powerhouse, largely due to glorious assets within the East and Central areas of the continent,” BloombergNEF reported in 2024. Six international locations, led by Ethiopia, get most of their electrical energy from hydropower.
“The hydro area is a large development space goal,” says MacColl of EPRI. As with photo voltaic, Africa makes use of solely a small fraction of its hydropower potential. Mini hydropower dams from 100 kilowatts to 1 megawatt are necessary for distant and small communities of round 50 to 500 houses, MacColl says. Giant dams are beneath development or have been lately accomplished in Angola, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Zambia.
However developing hydropower dams is dear and carries the danger of corruption and mismanagement that comes with large initiatives, in addition to the price of connecting a brand new energy supply to the ability grid. As an example, Nigeria’s $5.8 billion, 3,050-MW Mambilla dam, which can turn into the most important supply of electrical energy within the nation, has been within the starting stage for over 40 years, and completion isn’t anticipated earlier than 2030. Climate change’s impact on rainfall and temperature can be upending estimates of how a lot electrical energy hydropower dams throughout the area can produce.
May nuclear energy assist electrify Africa?
Even nuclear energy could play a task in closing Africa’s electrical energy hole. The African Energy Chamber, an business group primarily based in Johannesburg, notes in its 2025 Outlook Report that “a big variety of international locations in Africa are contemplating embarking on nuclear energy programmes.”
Right this moment, solely South Africa has nuclear energy. However Ghana, which runs a research reactor, is planning its first nuclear energy plant with help from China, Japan, and the US. Uganda has chosen a web site for its first reactors, as has Kenya. And the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority says it has signed technical agreements on nuclear energy with France, India, Russia, and South Korea. However in all these instances, producing electrical energy from nuclear energy is a minimum of a decade away, based on the World Nuclear Affiliation.
Kenya’s electrification success story
In the end, elevated entry to electrical energy in sub-Saharan Africa will come from quite a lot of sources. One success story is Kenya, the place off-grid electrical energy, primarily from photo voltaic, is complementing expanded grid entry. The federal government’s Last Mile Connectivity Project goals to increase the grid to a further 280,000 residences, 30,000 companies, and well being facilities and colleges in all 47 counties, based on the African Improvement Financial institution, which helped fund the hassle. Beforehand, the nationwide utility, Kenya Energy, succeeded in growing the variety of grid-connected households within the poorest urban areas from 3,000 to 150,000. Kenya additionally has the most important wind farm in Africa, the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project. The 310-MW plant’s 365 generators account for about 15 p.c of Kenya’s put in electrical energy capability.
These sustained efforts doubled Kenya’s electrification access rate between 2013 and 2023 to 79 p.c. Kenya Energy now goals to attain universal electricity access by 2030.
In the meantime, in Nigeria, essentially the most populous sub-Saharan nation, the outlook for electrical energy entry is cloudier. Joe, the Nigerian rice farmer, is contemplating putting in extra photo voltaic on his farm, to develop his mill. With extra electrical energy, he says, “we will develop extra rice, and mill and bag extra for our individuals.” If the ability grid received’t—or can’t—come to him, a minimum of he has the means to generate his personal electrical energy to fulfill his personal wants.
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