Sub-Saharan Africa: The Quest for Expanded Electricity Access

Much of Africa has the potential for great power production — whether from hydropower at the Inga Dams, geothermal resources in East Africa, offshore hydrocarbon resources in the Gulf of Guinea or South Africa's coal. A number of internationally backed aid projects and programs are aiming to increase electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa. Rajiv Shah, head of USAID, announced in December 2013 that the United States would include parts of the Inga Dam scheme, two hydroelectric dams on the Congo River, as a part of President Barack Obama's $7 billion Power Africa program, an initiative aiming to double sub-Saharan Africa's access to electricity.

However, production centers are often geographically separated from demand centers, and many cities do not have sizable distribution networks. Sub-Saharan Africa will not be able to quickly build up the infrastructure needed to distribute the electricity generated at the most promising — and remote — projects. While many of the aid projects are meant to give more households access to electricity, these projects will require substantial infrastructural improvements and increased connectivity. Africa will remain constrained in its ability to metabolize its power generation capacity in order to build a strong industrial or manufacturing sector, except for in a few areas. Many African countries struggle to generate enough electricity to meet a minimum of the consumer demands, let alone generate electricity for commercial demands, but reliable electricity supplies are often a prerequisite for the construction of manufacturing facilities.