Africa faces rising energy demands

Colin Ley Assesses the continent’s slow transition to renewables
Assessing the state on biofuels development across Africa with any degree of accuracy or fairness is always a challenge, given the vastness and diversity of the continent.
The complexity of the task is even greater at the moment as the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine impacts on previous plans for Africa’s transition away from fossil fuels as the world seeks ‘short-term’ alternatives to Russian oil and gas.
While it is certainly possible to conclude that substantial points of progress are being made by some African countries, it is also true that the size of the transition challenge can make it seem that almost nothing is taking place in others.
Massive demands
Even in countries or regions where good advances are being made, the extent to which new projects are being successfully managed is invariably dwarfed by the scale of the marketplace, with its ability to keep absorbing more and more new energy.
Take the Africa Biogas Partnership Programme (ABPP), for example. Launched in 2009 with the aim of developing a viable biodigester market in Sub Saharan...