Energy

Every department of this institute depends on energy. Clinics cannot keep vaccines cold, schools cannot open at night, factories cannot run shifts and minerals cannot be processed without reliable power. About 600 million Africans live without electricity, and many more have power that cuts out daily. Each blackout costs businesses money and pushes investment elsewhere. Energy is not one sector among many. It is the floor on which all the others stand.

Africa has every kind of energy. Rivers: the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is now Africa’s largest hydropower plant. Sun: Morocco’s Noor Ouarzazate is one of the largest solar complexes in the world. Earth heat: Kenya’s Rift Valley geothermal plants supply a large share of its electricity. Gas: Nigeria and Mozambique hold large reserves. Each has strengths and weaknesses: hydro depends on rain, solar on storage, gas on prices. Strong systems combine several sources and connect them with a grid.

The tools to power Africa already exist. The real obstacle is finance. Borrowing costs for African projects are often three to four times higher than in rich countries, and sub-Saharan Africa receives only about 2% of global clean energy investment. That is why the price of power stays high and projects stay on paper. Solutions include local savings and pension funds investing at home, public guarantees that lower risk, and citizens themselves investing, as Ethiopians did when they bought bonds to help build their dam.

For a family, electricity is a light to study by, a fridge for food, a phone that stays charged and a sewing machine that turns into a business. For a village, it is a clinic, a mill and a water pump. Mini-grids and solar home systems now bring power to places the national grid will not reach for years. Every new connection is not just a light switch. It is a small factory of opportunity.