A report by Hawilti, a Pan-African investment research firm has shown that despite holding more than 8 per cent of the world’s proven natural gas reserves, Africa remains the most energy-poor continent In the world.
The firm disclosed this in its recent report titled “Gas for Africa” released on Tuesday.
According to the report, Africa has the lowest energy consumption per capita in the world, while the average electricity use of a sub-Saharan African resident is lower than that of a household fridge in the United States (US).
Where energy is available in African countries, the report said it is often expensive, inefficient, polluting, and unreliable, adding that domestic natural gas can help to alleviate Africa’s energy poverty.
The report however showed that despite producing over 6 per cent of the world’s natural gas supply and having close to one-tenth of proven global reserves, most of the African continent has no access to its natural gas.
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“Africa’s domestic gas markets remain under-developed or non-existent, especially south of the Sahara, and much of Africa’s abundant natural gas resource development has been for export to the rest of the world,” it said.
According to the report, Africa needs gas to support the development of resilient grid infrastructure. This, it said, is needed to integrate significant shares of variable renewable and distributed energy, without compromising energy security or economic development.
It added that African power grids, where they exist, remain largely weak and unstable, which is a bad combination for any significant renewable capacity integration.
The report further showed that the grids need sufficient flexibility and that means African power networks need to be expanded and reinforced with a reliable supply of dispatchable power-generation resources that are available in sufficient quantities and on demand.
It explained that while hydropower and geothermal energy are ideal options to generate frequency control and dispatchable power in East Africa, gas is an essential tool for most of the rest of the continent to build robust and flexible electricity grids.
In that regard, the report said that developing gas-to-power initiatives must be part of the process of building and expanding reliable power systems that can integrate intermittent energies and pave the way for a low-carbon energy mix.
Story was adapted from Premium Times.
