As the climate crisis deepens, is Africa’s energy transition enough to meet true climate action targets or is the clean energy component just gaslighting?
Across Africa, millions still live in darkness. From Nigeria, the most populous black nation on earth with nearly 86.8 million of its populace lacking access to electricity and topping global energy deprivation rankings to Burundi, one of the most energy deficient countries in Africa with just about 12percent energy access; energy security obviously remains a sore point in Africa.
This is especially as Solar Energy has over the years been touted as the next big thing for Africa, with various countries charting new paths and strategies focused on solar power penetration, moreso for rural communities and leveling the gap for both the unserved and underserved.
Unfortunately, despite the billions of dollars sunk into solar projects, the rate of solar penetration in Africa continues to hover around 3percent. While billions of dollars have been sunk into solar projects in Africa, the outlook has not met expectations as Africa receives only 3percent of global renewable energy investments which does not meet the required amount, estimated at around $200 billion every year, to meet Africa’s energy access needs and meet climate action targets.
And this begs the question: As the climate crisis deepens, is Africa’s energy transition enough to meet true climate action targets or is the clean energy component just gaslighting?
Africa’s Energy Transition: Paradox or Growth
Africa’s energy space is a paradox: While the continent produces close to 900 twh per year, only 750twh reaches consumers signifying a loss of about 15percent. While this might seem high but manageable, in actual fact, the corresponding losses are much higher on a country-by-country basis.
Nigeria leads the pack with installed capacity of about 12gw with only about 4-5 GW available at any time for transmission – and these prone to numerous blackouts almost on a monthly basis. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) follows closely with over 100gw hydropower – via the Inga Dam – with only 3% utilized due to a heavily dilapidated national grid and conflicts. Then we have the trio of; Chad – 11%, Niger – 20%, Mali – 30%; which hold the dubious distinction of being among the least electrified countries globally.
At the top of the spectrum are countries like Egypt with 60gw – 100% access rate; Morocco: 11-12gw – 99% access rate and South Africa which has 58gw at 90% access rate.
While these countries have large percentages of access, the generality of Africans suffer from extremely poor energy access, with frequent grid failures due to technical issues, unbridled energy theft, and unchecked vandalism of energy infrastructure.
All these have fueled a market in generators worth about $30billion annually in Africa; more than half of it coming from Nigeria. To contextualize this, the annual spend of Nigeria on generators — about N16 TRILION — is enough to provide a minimum of 1,200 kw of solar power FOR EVERY SINGLE NIGERIAN. At 1,127 kWh/household/yr, this will comfortably run a fridge (200 kWh), multiple fans, LED lighting, TV and leaves room (500–700 kWh) for small productive loads (phone charging, sewing machine, small business tools).
This is a clear need for a changed policy direction to a clean energy sourced power sector in Africa.
Africa’s Energy Transition Plan
Africa’s Energy Transition has been implemented on a regional, continental and national scale. The continent is not just thinking about it but since 2015, has been actively pursuing various strategic and complementary plans at different levels of scale.
- Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI): AREI, launched in 2015, successfully met its initial goal of 10GW of renewable energy capacity by 2020. It has since extended its target to achieving 300GW by 2030. With less than five years remaining to achieve that goal, the postulations are guided.
- Accelerated Partnership for Renewables in Africa (APRA): This strategy was launched in Egypt at COP28, following the Nairobi declaration. It seeks to increase Africa’s renewable energy capacity from 56GW to 300GW by 2030. While similar in broad ambition to AREI, it differs in structure as it is more country specific and also seeks other goals including fossil fuel phase-out, grid infrastructure and power integration.
- Africa Energy Transition Programme (by AFREC): Seeks to provide policy, regulatory and financial frameworks to support African Union member states transit from fossil dependence to renewable energy.
- African Continental Power System Master Plan (CMP): Developed jointly by AUDA-NEPAD and IRENA, CMP focuses on building continent-wide energy planning and infrastructure to enable a coordinated, sustainable energy transition.
- AU’s Climate Resilience & Energy Efficiency Strategies: This strategy provided an actual target-based figures for countries to implement and work towards -specifically targeting energy efficiency in infrastructure developments.
The Cherry on Top – Mission 300
In a clear demonstration of intent, probably Mission 300 takes the cake. In January 2025, at Dar-es-Salaam, the World Bank and African Development Bank launched the Mission 300 initiative to provide access to 300 million Africans by 2030 with a funding target of about $90 billion. Over 30+ heads of African countries endorsed the initiative with a corollary to domesticate the plan with national energy compacts.
At the last briefing on Mission 300 in London in June 2025, Ghana, Mozambique, Togo, Burundi and Zimbabwe submitted their national energy compacts to join the 12 countries that had earlier submitted at the inaugural meeting in JANUARY.
The unique point of this strategy is that it is mixed delivery — 50% via grid optimization and 50% through renewables, mostly for rural communities and unserved.
While Mission 300 has shown early promise with over $50billion in pledges and 18 countries presenting their energy compacts within 6 months, there appears to be a gap in community engagement and civic buy-in as most of these compacts are paper based and do not appear to be inclusive in fore preparation.
Transition Narratives
The goalposts are shifting. Despite the global focus on climate action, Africa remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels, with hydrocarbon receipts dominating foreign exchange earnings.
There is a growing and very strategic lobby on Gas as a transition fuel which is gradually overshadowing the clean energy lobby which does not have the political astuteness nor financial outlay of the oil and gas lobby. Pushing this narrative is the reality that aligned to the fact of Africa contributing about 3percent of global emissions, the continent has gradually come to view energy security as of national security importance; and not just a standalone drive for lighting. Power for Africa is now about pushing innovations, creating and sustaining a strong industrial base and elevating the population’s quality of life.
Most African countries, in one form or other still subsidize their energy consumption. From tariff underpricing to cross subsidies – where industrial consumers pay more to offset poor households, or to fuel subsidies- either through pump prices or transportation rebates. There also exists an extremely weak bureaucratic framework where supervisory governance of the energy sector is fragmented, overlapping regulations and ministries working in silos without coordination.
High interest rates, currency devaluation and negligent raw material base with intuitive government support have stalled large scale clean energy projects as well as limited access to climate finance, including establishment of an effective carbon market.
While individual countries are scaling up their country specific interventions, the clear obvious is that Africa needs a regional integration plan to ensure that pressure is reduced on those moving forward. Each country must pull its own weight and contributed to the collective.
To turn energy plans into climate action, Africa must democratize inclusivity and ensure the involvement of the unseen, unheard and marginalized. From the rural poor to the urban slums, women and youths, policies should be deliberate in sensitivity and geared with a foundational intent of distributed growth.
Providing support for indigenous led local manufacturing with opportunities to create jobs and build energy independence is crucial.
Financing which prioritizes double digit interest rates are automatically built to fail. This form of financing can only support trade, not manufacturing or infrastructure development. Models to blend various financing alternatives including blended finance, green bonds, treasury bills, carbon trading mechanisms and public-private partnerships must be developed and implemented, and allowed to deepen.
Conclusion:
Africa’s energy transition holds potential, though climate impact seems to be confined to elite appreciation. With 600million people without access to electricity, Africa is sitting on a transitional goldmine of climate action interventions that renewable energy holds the key to. While the just energy transition drive, with natural gas as a hub, has become a key part of the conversation, Africa’s path to net-zero remains shrouded in complexities.
The direction is clear, but the path to get to that end goal is mired in so many offshoots, including geopolitical influences that Africa continues to hover at the cusp of making a decision; indecisive and seemingly afraid to chart a clear direction with whatever attendant consequences it brings.
Real climate leadership for Africa may and should not just be in toeing the line of the global south and abolishing all fossil fuels but in creating an equitable climate justice system that embraces community rehabilitation, rural electrification, clean cooking and equitable resilience.
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