The Potential for Regionally Integrated Energy Development in Africa: a Discussion Document

World Energy Council, London, 2003

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Efficient, cleaner energy forms are vital to Africa's development and fight against poverty yet the proportion of people still dependent on inefficient and polluting traditional energy sources is higher than any other continent. The traditional approach of constraining energy planning and development within national borders has exacerbated this problem. Africa, as a continent, possesses adequate energy resources for her development, but their distribution across the continent is highly uneven. While renewable energy is quite widely disseminated in Africa, this is not true for the mainstay conventional resources. Oil and gas are concentrated in north and west Africa, hydroelectric potential in central and east Africa and coal in southern Africa. It is this pattern of distribution and of energy use that underlies the case for regional, and ultimately continent-wide, integration of energy development.

Recognising this, WEC's African membership decided, with the financial support of BP Southern Africa and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), to undertake this study. They found that considerable progress has already been made. North Africa's oil, gas and electric grids are largely interconnected with onward links to Europe. The southern African Power Pool links countries from South Africa to the Congo DR and from Mozambique to Angola. East African countries have long shared hydroelectric capacity. Bilateral interconnections in west Africa are planned to come together into the West African Power Pool, supported by the West African Gas Pipeline.

WEC's African members hope that this review of Africa's integration experience to date may serve both to broaden understanding of the important benefits to be won from energy cooperation and integration, and to stimulate debate of the lessons that should be learnt to maximise the prospects for success of the energy integration projects envisaged under the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).