EcoWorldly

I have written elsewhere about Africa being the future of solar technologies because of the abundant sun that is there an average of 325 days a year, but it seems this dream is still way off. The State of Africa’s Renewable Energy, in a nutshell, is in its infancy and benign in comparison with the rest of the world.

So reading Gavin Hudson’s entry about the world’s 13 largest solar PV plants was, to me, like chickens coming home to roost. No solar plant in Africa was featured on that list, a Forbes List of sorts, for solar energy plants of the world. But I still believe Africa will arrive at the global stage at the appropriate time - with a bang.

Africa’s largest solar power plant is in Rwanda and has a capacity of only 250KW, small indeed in comparison with other conventional plants elsewhere, current or proposed. In Gavin’s list, two plants in Spain compete for current honors of 20MW capacity apiece, and two other proposed plants, both in the US, will have capacity of 280MW and 300 MW respectively, by 2011!

But there is hope. The developing nations of Africa are ideal locations for the application of renewable energy technology. Currently, many nations already have small-scale solar, wind, and geothermal devices in operation providing energy to urban and rural populations, according to Wikimedia.

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These types of energy production are especially useful in remote locations because of the excessive cost of transporting electricity from large-scale power plants. The application of renewable energy technology has the potential to alleviate many of the problems that face Africans every day, and do so in a sustainable manner.

The abundant sun means that solar power has the potential to bring energy to virtually any location in Africa without the need for expensive large scale grid level infrastructural developments.

Africa has a large coastline, where wind power and wave power resources are abundant and underutilized in the north and south. Geothermal power has potential to provide considerable amounts of energy in many eastern African nations, according to Esi-Africa.com, the online power journal.

Geothermal power is mostly concentrated in eastern Africa, but there are many fragmented spots of high intensity geothermal potential spread across the continent. There is enormous potential for geothermal energy in the Great Rift Valley which is roughly 3,700 miles in length and spans several countries in East Africa including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

The potential of geothermal power in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia stands at 3,000, 1,000 and 250 megawatts respectively. Of these Kenya, which leads in terms of exploitation of this energy, has only managed to harness some 150 megawatts. Ethiopia has exploited two megawatts and Uganda nil, according to African Energy Policy Research Network, a Nairobi-based think tank.

Photo-voltaic panels, wind turbines deep cycle batteries, meters, sockets cables and connectors are all expensive. Even when the relative difference in buying power, materials cost, opportunity cost, labor cost and overhead are factored in, renewable energy will remain expensive for people who are living on less than US$1 per day. Many rural electrification projects in the past use government subsidies to finance the implementation of rural development programs.

Resources: African Energy Policy Research Network, Treehugger, UN Concept Paper on Africa Renewable Energy Development

Photo credit: Flickr

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