Interesting https://www.pv-tech.cn/news/pursuing-greater-electrification-in-sub-saharan-africa-the-future-of-energy? (google translated)
The future of energy is forged here
March 24, 2022 Author: Selina Shi
(PV-Tech News) Research firm Wood Mackenzie says the electrification process in sub-Saharan Africa will require a $350 billion investment. This electrification process may reveal an alternative vision of the energy transition, one that uses cheap solar power to focus on a distributed, bottom-up, solar-storage-rich grid.
Its report on the energy transition in sub-Saharan Africa argues that rapidly falling renewable energy costs coupled with new business models could help electrify the region and close the gap between consumption and investment.
The report said that electricity supply in sub-Saharan Africa was uneven and was compromised by the region's severe shortage of electricity infrastructure. Electrifying the region will cost an estimated $350 billion by 2030, WoodMac said.
Meanwhile, population growth, rapid urbanization and structural transformation of the economy will increase the region's electricity demand by nearly eight-fold by 2050, according to WoodMac's 1.5°C Accelerated Energy Transition Scenario (AET-1.5) report.
Most public electricity companies in Africa are loss-making and have limited ability to maintain existing assets or invest in new ones, WoodMac said. In the absence of falling costs, cash-strapped utilities could see a drop in revenue, making it harder to maintain and expand the grid.
Benjamin Attia, principal analyst at WoodMac's Energy Transition Practice, said sub-Saharan Africa should target a decentralized, bottom-up solar-storage grid, which could "fundamentally reshape the trajectory of global electricity demand and contribute to the energy transition." vital."
"A decentralized, bottom-up solar-storage grid could not only transform the energy future of sub-Saharan Africa, but also has important implications for the next steps in the business models of utilities around the world," Attia said. The future of energy may will be cast there."
"As solar and battery technologies become more affordable, DERs are using flexible prepaid service models that coordinate cost, value and energy delivery, and they can also fall outside the confines of traditional utility cost recovery mechanisms , manage credit risk directly and digitally."
Attia said service providers in the region are "going directly into the bankable segment of residential, commercial and industrial electricity demand, often through distributed renewable off-grid solutions, while utilities are not It doesn't have those characteristics."
Together, these sectors will account for $62 billion of total African power investment opportunities this decade, according to analysis by WoodMac. These opportunities represent “a shift in utility business models toward broader, customer-centric service models,” and they represent the early stages of a shift that is a dramatic and fundamental evolution.
About half of African companies rely on backup diesel generators, and WoodMac estimates that there are currently more than 100GW of distributed diesel capacity in operation across Africa, and at least 17 African countries have more distributed diesel generator capacity than grid-connected power capacity.
Across sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa), generators provide only 7% of electricity, according to WoodMac. Consumers spend less than $20 billion a year on backup generator fuel, or about 80 percent of grid electricity costs.