Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract: Nearly half of all people in Sub-Saharan Africa,548 million people,lack access to electricity (Kruger et al. 2018,IEA et al. 2020). Reaching universal access by 2030,as prescribed in SDG 7 on affordable and clean energy,would require significant additional investments. Although energy production is increasing,it has been estimated that a fivefold increase from the current level of investments to more than USD 100 billion per year is needed (IEA 2019: 141). According to current energy policies in sub-Saharan African countries,almost two thirds of investments in power production on the continent are envisaged to be in non-hydro renewable energy like solar,wind and geothermal (ibid). However,many countries have been very slow in realising their goals for new renewable energy,which by 2018 still only accounted for 4% of total generating output (IEA 2019: 56,Kazimierczuk 2019).?Moving to scale? using new renewable energy technologies like solar and wind is required if African countries are to avoid becoming major contributors to carbon emissions and climate change.