ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
Africa provides the perfect opportunity for the application of renewable energy solutions and technologies. Unfortunately, about 635 million Africans still live without electricity, and the demand for energy is rising quickly. Given the lack of power supply, particularly in the rural regions, the growth of and demand for applications of small-scale solar, wind and geothermal technologies providing power to people and businesses is rapidly expanding.
The use of renewable technologies is especially useful in the farther, outlying areas as it is easier to set up a more costeffective solution in order to reduce the need for transporting electricity from far-away power plants via transmission lines which becomes pricey. Renewable energy has the potential to considerably assist many African countries. Harnessing the continent ' s renewable energy potential will bring socioeconomic benefits in support of poverty reduction, economic growth and employment as well as environmental protection.
In Africa, the share of renewables in power generation is a little over 20 percent, but is expected to increase manifold in the future as governments in the region continue to provide incentives to clean energy producers. Some of the most popular renewable energy sources in Africa are as under:
Hydroelectricity: The Congo River, the Zambezi, the Niger River and the Nile provide most of the resources for hydropower generation. The share of hydro resources in Africa is dominated by Central Africa with 40 percent, followed by East( 28 percent) and Southern Africa( 23 percent). The Grand Inga Hydro Power Plant developed on the Congo River is one of the largest projects in Africa, and has a power generation capacity exceeding 44,000 MW.
Despite the huge potential in this field with its vast resources, Africa is only able to utilise 5-10 percent of its technological capabilities to harness these energy capacities. This requires huge capital and labour investments. Among the renewable energy sources, hydropower contributes the largest share towards power generation. But due to its negative effects on the environment, focus is now shifting to power generation through alternatives sources including solar and wind energy.
Solar Energy: Africa is the sunniest continent on Earth and, thus, has huge potential to generate power by harnessing solar energy. The Northern part of Africa and some parts of Southern and East Africa witness long sunny days, and solar energy can play an important role in achieving selfreliance in terms of power generation in these areas. The most popular types of technologies through which solar power is produced are Concentrating Solar Power( CSP) 25 and Photovoltaics( PV) 26. With over 14 GW of solar PV and 6 GW of CSP in Africa, either announced or in the pipeline, there is huge scope for power generation through solar energy in the continent. In less than a decade ' s time, there has been a big jump in power generation- the PV installed capacity increased from 127 megawatts in 2009( MW) to nearly 1400 MW as of 2016, for which the data is available.
There have been significant cost reductions for solar PV due to new technological advancements, with prices having fallen by 75 percent. The electricity prices have also fallen between $ 0.13 and $ 0.26 / Kwh due to the lower cost of production.
36 • Africa Day Special • 2018