Natural gas: Africa's energy transition accelerator

Abstract

Latest assessments of Africa’s electricity sector show the progress being made, despite the underlying structural challenges. More Africans have access to electricity than before, currently fewer than 600 million people still cannot access electricity. However, progress must accelerate to connect millions more and close the daunting remaining gap. The energy sector of Africa is facing major transformation, in the face of expected quadrupling of demand by 2040. Under the scenario of progress envisaged in the African Union’s Agenda 2063, electricity supply is expected to expand by 600 GW of new capacity and demand to exceed 1,700 terawatt hours (TWh) (IEA, 2019). These bring both a significant financing challenge and new opportunities for Africa to shape its energy future. There are varying assessments of the direction that Africa’s energy future will take. Latest analyses indicate that renewable energy will account for nearly 60 per cent of future capacity, and that the share of natural gas in electricity generation will rise to 30 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa, from the current average share of under 5 per cent. Under this view, a combination of solar, wind and hydro energy and a calibrated role for natural gas is expected to drive the future direction of energy-sector transformation. It is within this context that this paper takes a closer look at the role of natural gas in powering Africa’s energy future.