Clean Power Africa conference was held at Cape Town, Africa last week.
Glenn Hodes, a senior energy economist and manager at the United Nations Environment Program at Risoe Centre in Denmark spoke to the participants on the topic of renewable energy and carbon investment trends in Africa.
Renewable energy technologies are ready to be taken up in developing countries like Africa. Nine African countries already had explicit renewable-energy targets, with five countries – Kenya, Uganda, Mauritius, Tanzania and South Africa – having created tariff structures, said, Hodes.
Investment in renewable energy in the Middle East and Africa had increased from $0.3-billion in 2004 to $6.7-billion in 2010, attributed to the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings in North Africa, Hodes said.
South Africa was composed to become a renewable energy leader inspired by support from government. The country has undergone significant reforms, creating a favorable investing climate for renewable energy. There is more to be done with a lot of policy work still pending, said, Hodes.
Nigeria was considered as the sleeping giant of renewable energy with current installed capacity of 3 000 MW only. The Nigerian government aims an energy supply target by ten times by 2020, with 7 percent of its energy needs being supplied by renewable- energy sources by 2025, noted Hodes.
Slow but steady policy progress was being made in the country, with independent power producers negotiating with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission.
Angola also had potential for a renewable-energy generation increase and the country recently announced a $17-billion energy access drive to enhance electricity generation capacity from 1 200 MW to 5 000 MW by 2016 through hydropower generation.
Besides, Uganda had emerged as a energy sector reformer. It is a smaller market, but shows an enthusiasm to reform the regulatory framework and interest to work with international organizations to develop credit schemes for green power projects, explained Hodes.
Moreover, the country was also incentivizing the use of solar water heating, developing a strategy to increase the use of bioenergy, from 4 percent to 16 percent by 2017.
Kenya also performed well in the market, being the leaders in renewable-energy growth, implementing a successful renewable-energy feed-in-tariff approach, added Hodes.
The country was focusing on implementing large-scale wind projects in the Rift Valley and in coastal areas. The construction on the largest wind project in sub- Saharan Africa, at Lake Turkana, should start soon, concluded Hodes.