“Our generation grew up with an abundance of fossil fuels. Since then, however, Africa’s demographic growth has accelerated, with the region’s population reaching 2 billion people at the horizon of 2050, half of whom are under 30 years of age. So, we have to decide which energy transition trajectory suits us best,” Tella said.
In the energy mix of African countries, the share of “clean” energy sources has reached 20-30%. For example, Ethiopia is one of the world’s largest producers of hydroelectricity; Morocco has significantly increased its solar energy capacity; South Africa has been able to improve the reliability of network infrastructure that failed several years ago; and Kenya makes extensive use of geothermal energy.
“The key task is to achieve a stable energy supply at minimal cost,” Tella emphasized. Energy storage technologies, which remain quite expensive, are unlikely to be widely used for this purpose, he said. For the same reason, African countries are unlikely to become large producers of “green” hydrogen, which is inferior in cost to hydrogen from fossil fuels. He noted that Mali is experiencing small generation from natural hydrogen.
“Small hydropower and distributed generation solutions are suitable for the region beside the development of large hydropower and gas fired power plants which require massive investments ” concluded Tella.
