In Africa, 600 million people are still without electricity, most in isolated communities. With no possible connection to the central network, the sector can be a gold mine for investors, thanks to the boom in the installation of electric generators. A theme that received a great response during the US-Africa Economic Summit held from May 6 to 9 in Dallas.
From our correspondent in Texas,
In 2030, the US government, but also The World Bank wants to double access to electricity in Africa south of the Sahara. US trade and development agencies have also made it a priority because, according to Nisha Biswal, number two at the US Development Finance Agency (DFC), energy is the foundation of Africa’s prosperity.
” You need reliable energy to run the oil industry, if you want to expand your mining operations, you need power, if you want to create a digital economy, data centers, you need power. So electricity is the basic element, reveals Nisha Biswal. We provide energy infrastructure across the continent, renewable energy, wind, solar, connected or off grid. »
DFC has thus released 412 million dollars in loans and risk insurance for the distribution of green energy and for the construction of a power plant in Freetown, which will generate 75% of Sierra Leone’s energy.
Decentralized electrification
But in order to gain access to isolated communities, it is not necessarily necessary to consider a connection to the country’s electricity grid,but imagine other models. ” One of our challenges is to find a way to respond to the last mile challenge by using customers in the communities who can pay for electricity to allow us to reach those who cannot », explains Richard Nelson, from the Power Africa agency. The latter coordinates US agencies and the public and private sectors to provide electricity to 300 million people by 2030.
Thus, the latest projects of the US Agency for Trade and Development, USTDA, are focused on these last kilometers with the creation, for example, of a mini-solar energy network independent of the electricity grid in northern Nigeria or helping to create solar batteries in Zambia. ” We focus on off-grid projects because it is the most efficient way to access isolated communities, specifies Enoh Ebong, Director of USTDA. These off-grid projects will not be large projects at once. I think it makes sense to support both large-scale funded mega-projects, but they will never access these communities at the same time. So you have to do both. »
Now decentralized energy production, i.e. not connected to the grid, essential to bridging the gap in energy access.
