Africans Deserve Real Electricity – Watts Up With That?

By Brenda Shaffer

The  G-7 countries are meeting this week in Kananaskis in Alberta, Canada. This G-7 meeting will focus on geopolitical issues. While many disagreements currently prevail among the G-7 countries, all likely agree that African countries deserve a shot at pulling themselves up out of poverty. Africa is the only continent in the world where the population’s electricity access is declining,  and poverty is growing. Not only is electricity access in Africa waning, but the G-7 supported policies have led to a new phenomenon—wide-spread establishment of unreliable electricity. To avoid consumption of fossil fuels, the G-7 and its supported institutions such as the World Bank have been promoting off-grid solar, and renewable expansion in Africa without expanding baseload power sources such as fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Sporadic electricity can power a lamp or charge a phone, but not industry, water pumps and refrigeration, which are necessary for poverty reduction. It  is time for the G-7  to end its embargo on Africa’s access to reliable electricity, and remove the World Bank’s limitations on financing fossil fuels production and electricity generation. Africans deserve real electricity.

The G-7 2021 decision to stop financing fossil fuel production and electricity generation  was based on the idea that  that if there is limited access to fossil fuels, people will turn to solar, wind and hydropower. However, in reality, without access to affordable and  reliable fossil fuel power plants,  most in Africa continue to burn dung and other biomass for energy, rather than consuming more renewable energy. And this increased use of traditional biomass generates greater pollution and emissions and harms health more than fossil alternatives, such as natural gas.

Following the G-7 decision, the World Bank prioritized lowering emissions over poverty reduction in Africa, in defiance of  its defined mission. The International Energy Agency also abandoned its mission of energy security and took up climate policy in its place. The organizations  recommend more expensive and less reliable renewable energy for Africa, and don’t even suggest fossil fuel options, even though these could more readily  power African  development and help Africa rise from poverty. Moreover, restricting loans and capital to renewable energy leaves  Africans  with more expensive power. This does not seem like the right policy for the world’s poorest.

About a quarter of the new electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa  in recent years is from off-grid solar energy. Thus, many of the new electricity users do not have full  electricity access. In Africa, the  World Bank no longer promotes policies for  provision of  baseload power in electricity supply, in order to avoid admitting that Africa needs fossil fuels. There is no large-scale stable electricity without  baseload power. 

Global climate policies to restrict public funding and capital for investments in natural gas projects have disproportionately hurt Africa. High-income countries don’t need public funding for energy development, unlike most African states. Private capital markets also reduced investments in recent years in  fossil fuel production despite market demand. This drove-up energy prices, pushing energy access out of reach for many Africans and leaving many new gas discoveries in Africa, untapped. 

The U.S., Canada and other main donors should not allow the World Bank, International Energy Agency  and other entities they fund to count partial electricity access as full electricity access. If a village gets a solar energy unit that provides a few hours a day of power, this does not power machinery and stable supplies for refrigeration and water pumps. As a  result, this electricity access is highly  limited in its ability to  spur economic growth, and it is incorrect to describe these villagers as having real access to electricity. Data on electricity access in U. S. government, IEA, World Bank, and UN reports should be categorized as reliable or not. Africans receiving a few hours a day of unreliable power should not be counted as achieving full electricity access.

It is time to flip the high moral position. Those that aspire to net-zero are condemning Africa to extreme poverty. Those that promote African access to fossil fuels, want Africans to have the chance to rise up. 

Prof. Brenda Shaffer is an energy expert at the U.S. Naval Post-graduate School. @ProfBShaffer

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

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