The photo is sourced from premiumtimesng.com
Three-quarters of the power plants under construction in the region are located in such resource-rich countries as Algeria (5.3 GW) and Libya (2 GW) accounting for almost 30% of Africa’s gas reserves (3.7 trillion cubic metres out of 12.9 tcm) and 44% of actual gas production (113 bcm out of 258 bcm in 2021, according to the BP World Energy Review). The remaining 25% of the capacity under construction is split between Nigeria (839 MW), Sudan (575 MW), Mozambique (450 MW), Senegal (420 MW) and Tunisia (150 MW).
There is a slightly different layout for the power plants at the pre-investment stage when the operators of the announced project have already started to search for the investors but have not started construction of the facilities: out of 17.3 GW of potential capacities, exactly one third is in South Africa (5.9 GW), and the remaining two thirds – mainly in Libya (5.1 GW), Mozambique (2.6 GW), Angola (1.8 GW) and Tunisia (0.9 MW). This group also includes Namibia (443 MW), Cameroon (265 MW), Ghana (200 MW), Mauritania (120 MW) and Sierra Leone (89 MW).
In recent years, Africa has been the only region in the world where the construction rate of gas-fired power plants did not decrease but, on the contrary, accelerated. The volume of commissioning of new generating capacity in the world slowed from 290 GW in 2011-2015 to 211 GW in 2016-2020, and in Asia – from 81 GW to 68 GW, respectively. In Africa, the figure increased from 16 GW to 25 GW and 28 GW during the same periods. In addition to Algeria and Libya, Egypt played an important role, where the capacity increase of gas-fired power plants in 2011-2015 accounted for 53% (13 GW) and 63% (17.5 GW) in 2016-2020, according to Ember Research Centre.
According to BP, the share of gas in the generation mix in Africa increased from 20% in 2000 to 32% in 2010 and 39% in 2020, and reached 41% in 2021. This helped the leading countries in the region to complete electrification: for example, the share of households connected to the public grid rose from 97.7% in 2000 to 100% in 2020, and in Algeria – from 99% to 99.8% over the same period.
