Africa's Energy Future
Why Africa faces a unique energy dilemma: needing fossil fuels for development while the world pushes decarbonization.
The Energy Poverty Crisis
Africa is home to 1.4 billion people but consumes less electricity than the US state of Texas. Roughly 600 million Africans lack access to electricity, and 900 million lack access to clean cooking fuels, relying instead on wood, charcoal, and dung that cause indoor air pollution responsible for roughly 500,000 premature deaths annually on the continent.
Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, has an installed electricity capacity of roughly 50 GW for over a billion people -- less than South Korea, population 52 million. Per capita electricity consumption in many African countries is under 200 kilowatt-hours per year, compared to 12,000 in the US and 6,500 in Europe. Without dramatically more energy, economic development, industrialization, and poverty reduction are impossible.