Bank Group vision

Between 1967 and 2007, 12% of Bank Group approvals amounting to UA 3 billion were allocated to the energy sector, with about 90% of this amount going to power supply. At the national level, support was provided to electrification programmes in countries such as Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal and Tunisia.

Rural electrification has been the dominant objective under the ADF window, followed by multi-national grid interconnections and renewable energy development. In collaboration with the World Bank, the AfDB has also supported energy sector reforms in a number of countries, including Senegal.

Under the ADB window, large-scale power generation projects have tended to dominate, followed by modern fuels (refined petroleum products and gas) and power transmission and distribution, in that order.

African countries' energy development strategy geared to the goal of access-for-all should be anchored on three pillars:

maximize clean energy options
emphasize energy efficiency
participate more effectively in international carbon credit markets.

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Charles Mataure - Zimbabwe 07/05/2012 22:01

I believe that the approach to "energising" Africa erquires a different model to the more traditional ones we have hitherto adopted. The reality are: 1. the population densities (and scatter) are more random, especially in the rural areas, making the reticulation costs very expensive. 2. The usage of power after traversing all these kilometres, AND having the lines energised to meet the demand, may always make the economic sense marginal. I believe we need to assess the TYPE of energy we predominantly need (and in all cases it is THERMAL, i.e. HEATING) for 50%+ of the total. Thus we should be supplyin the cheaper and more appropriate fuel for this function, that is Gas. GAS is portable, used only as required, cleaner, faster and can be taken to ant location required. Once this is in place, the energy required for other uses, (lighting, appliances, etc) becomes relatively minor and can easily be met, even on a house by house basis, using sources such as solar, small inverter, etc. This matrix will prove MUCH CHEAPER than the traditional route of builing power stations and carrying power to all the remote areas using expensive copper and aluminium conductors, which themselves add to the overall cost and are prone to theft and vandalism. The maintenance costs of electrical infrastructure (transformers, switchgear) are also a cost to factored into the overall supplier costs. I am therefore proposing that the bank assists in the thorough assessment of the ENERGY MIX/MATRIX that is ideal for the African environment so that we do not commit resources that will strangle our consumers to huge infrastructure costs for many years to come.