These figures appear to have been discussed for a while. Even while considerable progress has been made, the IEAs Africa Energy Outlook 2022 demonstrates that much more has to be done in order to provide everyone in Africa with access to modern, inexpensive, dependable, and sustainable energy.
While 160 million Africans got access to power between 2010 and 2019, the research warns that more than 40% of Africans are still without service. Less than 6% of the world’s energy consumption comes from Africa, despite the continent having 18% of the world’s population. About half of the 600 million people in Africa who don’t have access to electricity live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. According to the research, certain nations, like Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda, are on schedule to achieve full access by 2030. These nations can serve as positive role models and success stories for other nations.
More than 970 million people still lack access to clean cooking, according to the research. Yes, approximately 1 billion people lack access to clean cooking across the continent. The primary sources of energy for cooking on the continent are still wood fuel, trash, and charcoal used in threestone fires. The threestone fire gives not only a cooking platform but also heat throughout the colder months of the year because the fuel is free and generally simple to locate. However, cooking over an open flame can produce hazardous smoke. 4 million persons pass away each year from diseases brought on by cooking smoke. According to the Clean Cooking Alliance, women and children in impoverished nations suffer significantly since they must spend up to 20 hours each week acquiring these cooking fuels, such as wood. Accelerating the transition to cleaner cooking is essential because it will free up time for women and children to engage in more beneficial community activities.
Over 70 million new connections must be made every year if inexpensive electricity is to be made available to everyone by 2030. According to the IEA’s assessment, this would essentially mean double the present rate of connections. To achieve universal access to clean cooking technologies and fuels by 2030, more than 120 million people must quit using unclean cooking fuels each year!
According to the IEA’s study, expanding national grids is the most prudent and economically advantageous strategy for expanding access to energy. According to the report, several public utilities on the continent that are crucial to financing the power sector are currently dealing with serious cash flow problems that run the risk of turning into longer-term debt. Many of these public utilities also have historical problems with subpar administration, underinvestment, and inadequate cost recovery as a result of historically low electricity pricing for a variety of reasons. This has made it more difficult for them to maintain their current assets and make investments in new ones, which has slowed the expansion of the networks for the transmission and distribution of power. The paper points out that fewer than 3% of the world’s clean energy investment from 2010 to 2020 went to African countries, who were already having difficulty attracting finance in the energy industry before the pandemic.
It appears that in order to effectively address the issue of access to power and clean cooking, a quantum leap in financial raising is required. To meet the goals for universal access by 2030, a lot of effort needs to be done on numerous fronts.
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