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Sustainable pathways towards universal renewable electricity access in Africa

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 5, pages 137–151 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Half of the African population currently lacks the minimum levels of electricity access defined by the International Energy Agency. However, given the limited fossil fuel dependency and need for energy infrastructure expansion, there are expectations that at least some African countries could avoid fossil fuel dependency altogether and move directly to renewable energy (RE)-based electricity systems. In this Perspective, we present trends in Africa’s RE development and access on a national level and discuss the respective country-specific capacities to lead the transition to sustainable RE for all. If all existing wind, solar and hydropower plants operate on full capacity and all proposed plants are implemented, 76% (1,225 TWh) of electricity needs projected for 2040 (a total of 1,614 TWh) could be met by RE (82% hydropower, 11% solar power and 7% wind power). Hydropower has been the main RE resource to date, but declining costs for solar photovoltaics (90% decline since 2009) and wind turbines (55–60% decline since 2010) mean solar and wind have potential to lead sustainable RE pathways going forward, while also protecting freshwater ecosystems. Efficiently combining the advantages of hydropower with wind and solar will be a more sustainable alternative to hydropower alone. As resource potential differs among countries, transnational electricity sharing is recommended to distribute resources and share nationally produced peak capacity. Comprehensive investigations should further assess and monitor socioeconomic, political and ecological impacts of RE development.

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Fig. 1: Development of renewable energy implementation in Africa.
Fig. 2: Existing renewable power plants and the share of renewable electricity generation.
Fig. 3: Existing and proposed renewable power plants by capacity size.
Fig. 4: Coverage of current and projected electricity demand by renewable energy.
Fig. 5: Optimization of renewable energy systems in long-term system-scale planning.

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Data availability

Data on renewable power plants was used from the RePP Africa database, available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6058565.v1.

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Acknowledgements

C.Z. and R.P. acknowledge the funding through the Excellence Strategy at the University of Tübingen, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Rebecca Peters & Christiane Zarfl

  2. Institute of Environmental Systems Research, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany

    Jürgen Berlekamp

  3. Center of Excellence in Energy for Sustainable Development, University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda

    Charles Kabiri

  4. Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management, University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda

    Beth A. Kaplin

  5. School for the Environment, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Boston, MA, USA

    Beth A. Kaplin

  6. Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, Frankfurt a. M., Germany

    Klement Tockner

  7. Faculty of Biological Sciences, Goethe-University, Frankfurt a. M., Germany

    Klement Tockner

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Contributions

R.P. and C.Z. conceptualized and outlined the manuscript. R.P. performed analysis and visualized graphics. C.Z., B.A.K., K.T. and J.B. substantially contributed to the interpretation. R.P. wrote the initial draft of this paper and all co-authors revised the work carefully. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Peters, R., Berlekamp, J., Kabiri, C. et al. Sustainable pathways towards universal renewable electricity access in Africa. Nat Rev Earth Environ 5, 137–151 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00501-1

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