IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v16y2023i23p7708-d1285335.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy Status in Africa: Challenges, Progress and Sustainable Pathways

Author

Listed:
  • Maklewa Agoundedemba

    (Department of Physics, Kenyatta University, Nairobi P.O. Box 43844-00100, Kenya
    Renewable Energy Big Data Laboratory, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon 34129, Republic of Korea)

  • Chang Ki Kim

    (Renewable Energy Big Data Laboratory, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon 34129, Republic of Korea
    Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34113, Republic of Korea)

  • Hyun-Goo Kim

    (Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34113, Republic of Korea
    Renewable Energy Institute, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon 34129, Republic of Korea)

Abstract

Access to modern energy is essential for socioeconomic development, yet Africa faces significant challenges in this regard. For example, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is marked by economic underdevelopment and poverty largely due to the non-environmentally friendly energy used (wood, charcoal) and limited access to modern energy resources. Indeed, this review provides an overview of the African energy landscape; it provides a comprehensive renewables-focused energy pathway for developing a cleaner and more sustainable African energy system. It explores end-use sector electrification in both rural and urban areas in Africa. It emphasizes the rapid expansion of renewable generation, the challenges facing and solutions for the implementation of renewable energy, and the role of emerging technologies. It also presents technological pathways and investment opportunities that will enrich the regional debate and help accelerate the energy transformation across Africa. The analysis demonstrated that the current trends of renewable energy used are hydropower, wind power, biomass, and geothermal energy. The electrification rate in West Africa is less than 58% in urban areas and less than 25% in rural areas. Results show that 65% of the SSA population does not have access to electricity and 81% rely on wood and charcoal. In West Africa, only Ghana (70% or so) and Cape Verde (95.9% or so) have equitable access to electricity between rural and urban areas. The potentiality of solar irradiance in Africa ranges between 3 and 7 KWh/m 2 /day. The wind speed ranges from 3 m/s to 10 m/s; the wave power can range from 7 to 25 kW/m per site in island regions. Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia, Tunisia, and South Africa are, respectively, countries leading in wind power technology, and solar energy technology was more advanced in North Africa and South Africa. Finally, geothermal is only developed in Kenya and Tanzania and Kenya is the leader in that field. Although renewable energy in Africa is still growing year to year, it still faces power outages because most renewable energy potentialities are not yet exploited, the technologies used are weak, there is insufficient funding, there is ineffective infrastructure, and there are inadequate or no policies in that field.

Suggested Citation

  • Maklewa Agoundedemba & Chang Ki Kim & Hyun-Goo Kim, 2023. "Energy Status in Africa: Challenges, Progress and Sustainable Pathways," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-20, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:23:p:7708-:d:1285335
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/23/7708/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/23/7708/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Surroop, Dinesh & Raghoo, Pravesh, 2018. "Renewable energy to improve energy situation in African island states," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 176-183.
    2. Piet Buys & Uwe Deichmann & Craig Meisner & Thao Ton That & David Wheeler, 2009. "Country stakes in climate change negotiations: two dimensions of vulnerability," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 288-305, May.
    3. Fahd Mohamed Omar Al-Guthmy & Wanglin Yan, 2020. "Mind the gap: personal carbon trading for road transport in Kenya," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(9), pages 1141-1160, October.
    4. Daniel Ganea & Valentin Amortila & Elena Mereuta & Eugen Rusu, 2017. "A Joint Evaluation of the Wind and Wave Energy Resources Close to the Greek Islands," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-22, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adoum Abdoulaye, Mahamat & Waita, Sebastian & Wabuge Wekesa, Cyrus & Mwabora, Julius Mwakondo, 2024. "Optimal sizing of an off-grid and grid-connected hybrid photovoltaic-wind system with battery and fuel cell storage system: A techno-economic, environmental, and social assessment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 365(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Festus Fatai Adedoyin & Festus Victor Bekun & Kayode Kolawole Eluwole & Samuel Adams, 2022. "Modelling the Nexus between Financial Development, FDI, and CO 2 Emission: Does Institutional Quality Matter?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-17, October.
    2. Alemzero, David & Acheampong, Theophilus & Huaping, Sun, 2021. "Prospects of wind energy deployment in Africa: Technical and economic analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 652-666.
    3. Rusu, Eugen & Onea, Florin, 2019. "An assessment of the wind and wave power potential in the island environment," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 830-846.
    4. Morim, Joao & Cartwright, Nick & Hemer, Mark & Etemad-Shahidi, Amir & Strauss, Darrell, 2019. "Inter- and intra-annual variability of potential power production from wave energy converters," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 1224-1241.
    5. Md Altab Hossin & Shuwen Xiong & David Alemzero & Hermas Abudu, 2023. "Analyzing the Progress of China and the World in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 13," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-16, September.
    6. Mohammed, Y.S. & Mustafa, M.W. & Bashir, N., 2013. "Status of renewable energy consumption and developmental challenges in Sub-Sahara Africa," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 453-463.
    7. Rusu, Eugen, 2020. "An evaluation of the wind energy dynamics in the Baltic Sea, past and future projections," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 350-362.
    8. Rong, Fang, 2010. "Understanding developing country stances on post-2012 climate change negotiations: Comparative analysis of Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4582-4591, August.
    9. Raghoo, Pravesh & Surroop, Dinesh, 2020. "Price and income elasticities of oil demand in Mauritius: An empirical analysis using cointegration method," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    10. Américo S. Ribeiro & Maite deCastro & Liliana Rusu & Mariana Bernardino & João M. Dias & Moncho Gomez-Gesteira, 2020. "Evaluating the Future Efficiency of Wave Energy Converters along the NW Coast of the Iberian Peninsula," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-15, July.
    11. Sandrine Mathy & Odile Blanchard, 2016. "Proposal for a poverty-adaptation-mitigation window within the Green Climate Fund," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(6), pages 752-767, August.
    12. Rusu, Liliana, 2019. "Evaluation of the near future wave energy resources in the Black Sea under two climate scenarios," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 137-146.
    13. Jianzhou Wang & Chunying Wu & Tong Niu, 2019. "A Novel System for Wind Speed Forecasting Based on Multi-Objective Optimization and Echo State Network," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-34, January.
    14. Timmons, D. & Dhunny, A.Z. & Elahee, K. & Havumaki, B. & Howells, M. & Khoodaruth, A. & Lema-Driscoll, A.K. & Lollchund, M.R. & Ramgolam, Y.K. & Rughooputh, S.D.D.V. & Surroop, D., 2019. "Cost minimization for fully renewable electricity systems: A Mauritius case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    15. Fabio Bothner, 2021. "Personal Carbon Trading—Lost in the Policy Primeval Soup?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-16, April.
    16. Deichmann, Uwe & Meisner, Craig & Murray, Siobhan & Wheeler, David, 2011. "The economics of renewable energy expansion in rural Sub-Saharan Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 215-227, January.
    17. Sanoh, Aly & Kocaman, Ayse Selin & Kocal, Selcuk & Sherpa, Shaky & Modi, Vijay, 2014. "The economics of clean energy resource development and grid interconnection in Africa," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 598-609.
    18. Franck M. Ramaharo & Michael Fitiavana Randriamifidy, 2023. "Determinants of renewable energy consumption in Madagascar: Evidence from feature selection algorithms," Working Papers hal-04262240, HAL.
    19. Nie, Qingyun & Zhang, Lihui & Tong, Zihao & Hubacek, Klaus, 2022. "Strategies for applying carbon trading to the new energy vehicle market in China: An improved evolutionary game analysis for the bus industry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    20. Farid Gasmi & Laura Recuero Virto & Denis Couvet, 2023. "An empirical analysis of economic growth in countries exposed to coastal risks: Implications for their ecosystems," Post-Print hal-04547896, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:23:p:7708-:d:1285335. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.