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African countries need progressive energy policies

  • Writer: Masedi Tlhong
    Masedi Tlhong
  • Mar 27
  • 4 min read

The African continent has one of the lowest rates of energy access compared to other continents. The continent faces the unique challenge of developing its energy infrastructure to address the existing energy shortage and ensure wide scale access to energy.[1] Compounding this challenge is the global energy transition, which demands urgent action to ensure Africa’s energy problems become a thing of the past.[2] This blog examines the state of the energy infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa and emphasizes the point that the continent’s future prosperity hinges on its ability to develop reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy systems. However, this cannot be achieved without a fundamental shift to progressive energy policies that explicitly account for increased energy demand and are regularly revised, such as those considered and adopted in Kenya and South Africa.


The state of Africa’s energy infrastructure 

While North Africa has made some progress, the electricity infrastructure across much of Sub-Saharan Africa remains underdeveloped and unreliable, severely hampering industrialization efforts.[3] Despite adding over 66 GW of power generation capacity to the grid between 2012 and 2022, Africa continues to face a significant energy deficit. Notably, even with this substantial increase, the continent’s total power generation capacity remains comparable to that of Germany, a country with a population of just 84.5 million.[3] This stark disparity underscores the continent’s significant energy deficit. For development, access to affordable, reliable, and renewable energy is critical for driving economic recovery and enabling economies to achieve their long-term growth potential.[4]


The dual challenges of [4] insufficient public funding and limited private sector engagement in transmission and distribution projects have exacerbated grid constraints, impacting both energy generation efficiency and capacity.[4] Moreover, inadequate grid capacity limits investments in new electricity generation projects highlighting the urgent need for coordinated public-private efforts to address grid infrastructure gaps, which are critical to resolving Africa’s energy crisis. For this to work progressive and innovative energy policies are required.


Existing policy gaps

Africa’s lack of a unified and integrated energy policy represents a significant gap in its policy framework. While regional power pools exist, their effectiveness depends on the establishment of a well-defined, cohesive, and Africa-centered energy strategy. Although several African countries have implemented policies aimed at energy security, few address the issue of underserved areas, the inadequate energy infrastructure, growing demand for electricity in line with the rapid urbanization of African countries, and the huge gaps in financing that can provide cheaper access to clean and less polluting energy sources.


Progressive energy policies

Kenya and South Africa provide insightful examples of modern energy policy approaches. For example, before South Africa released the Integrated Resource Plan in 2010 with updates in 2019 and 2023, the policy informing the energy outlook can be traced back to the 1998 White Paper on energy. Though the White Paper outlines the government's key goals, which include expanding access to affordable energy services, enhancing energy governance, fostering economic growth, addressing environmental impacts related to energy, ensuring energy security through diversification and introducing competition at energy-generation levels, the IRP is the living document that ensures that electricity generation goals are progressive and achievable. The IRP ensures that energy demand is explicitly accounted for and met with electricity generation from different sources with the goal to reduce green house gas emissions and the costs to the country [4]. South Africa’s IRP is forward-looking making provision for an integrated energy mix where coal and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are balanced to address the country’s energy poverty.[7]


Kenya’s National Energy Policy 2025-2034 is also an ambitious forward-looking document, the vision of which is to advocate for equitable energy transition, focusing on innovation, resilience, and sustainability to meet the energy needs of the people of Kenya.[5] The aim of the policy is to address the challenges of energy access, affordability, and security whilst promoting clean energy solutions in order to reduce Kenya’s dependence on fossil fuels and driving green industrialization.[6] Both these policies reflect a tangible approach towards inclusivity and modernization of outdated and unintegrated energy policies.


To conclude, SDG 7 is underpinned by three targets: ensuring universal access to energy services (7.1), increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix (7.2), and improving energy efficiency (7.3).[7] To achieve these sustainable development goals, access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy which progressive energy policies can facilitate are required.[8]


References

  1. African Development Agency, Empowering Africa: Enhancing Access To Electricity Through Renewable Energy available at: https://www.nepad.org/blog/empowering-africa-enhancing-access-electricity-through-renewable energy#:~:text=As%20a%20result%20of%20the,Member%20States%20barely%20exceeds%2040%25 accessed on: 23 March 2025.

  2. IRENA, Global Energy Transformation a Road Map to 2050, available at:  https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2018/Apr/IRENA_Report_GET_2018.pdf accessed on: 18 March 2025.

  3. Africa Finance Corporation- State of Africa’s Infrastructure Report 2024- The Infrastructure Imperative: Igniting Africa’s Industrial Renaissance available at: https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/afc-assets/afc/AFC-State-of-Africas-Infrastructure-2024.pdf accessed on: 12 March 2025.

  4. Msimango et al, South Africa's Energy Policy: Prioritizing Competition and Climate Change for Decarbonisation. Available at: https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/93422/Msimango_South_2023.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y accessed on: 16 March 2025.

  5. Ministry of Energy & Petroleum, State Department For Energy (Kenya), National Energy Policy 2025 – 2034. Available at: Final Draft National Energy Policy 18022025.pdf accessed on : 23 March 2025.

  6. Ministry of Energy & Petroleum, State Department For Energy (Kenya), National Energy Policy 2025 – 2034. Available at: Final Draft National Energy Policy 18022025.pdf accessed on : 23 March 2025.

  7. Department if Minerals and Energy, Electricity Regulation Act: Integrated Resource Plan 2023, available at: integrated resource plan south africa energy poverty - Google Search. Accessed on: 22 March 2025.

  8. McCollum et al, SDG7 Ensure Access To Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable, and Modern Energy For All, available at:  https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/14621/1/SDGs-interactions-7-clean-energy.pdf accessed on: 15 March 2025.


 

Author's bio

Masedi Tlhong is an attorney and Director in the Competition Law department at TGR Attorneys in South Africa. Masedi has a keen interest in the contours at which competition law and policy meet energy policy, disciplines he hopes to continue exploring throughout his career. These fields are especially intriguing given the current global energy transition. He holds an LLB, a Postgraduate Certificate in Competition Law, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management (Energy Leadership) from the University of the Witwatersrand and is currently studying towards an LLM in Competition Law and Policy at the University of the Western Cape.

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