The African Energy Chamber (AEC) has hosted a prelude launch of its Team-Energy Africa initiative before the high-level launch event scheduled for May 17 to 19 in Rwanda.

The initiative, which AEC is embarking on in partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Secretariat of Sustainable Energy for All, aims to mobilise private sector financing for accelerated clean energy deployments in Africa.

Africa has an abundance of energy sources, including 20 000 MW of geothermal, 350 000 MW of hydro and 110 000 MW of wind potential.

“And yet, 590-million people remain without access to electricity,” says African Climate Policy Centre senior environmental affairs officer Linus Mofor.

He says African countries need plenty of secure, affordable and reliable energy if countries are to recover from the pandemic, provide better health and education, industrialise, capitalise on the continent-wide free trade area, boost economic growth and reduce poverty.

Team-Energy Africa will help raise the required $500-billion in investment to realise universal electricity access.

The Team-Energy Africa initiative is anchored on three overarching pillars – sustainability, governance and finance.

By supporting countries that embrace sustainability and address key governance challenges to unlock private sector clean energy investment, Team-Energy Africa is committed to unlocking critical capital, fostering an enabling environment for investment in Africa, and ushering in a new era of energy access and growth, while accelerating Africa’s energy transition.

There are less than eight years left to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7, which is aimed at achieving equitable energy access for all.

“As we plan for a global energy transition, we must put people first. The transition must be just, equitable and inclusive. Countries must be able to identify their own pathways to develop a least-cost approach to the transition,” says ECA executive secretary Tracey Crowe.

She stresses that energy access and economic growth go hand-in-hand and that governments need to ensure the necessary policy and enabling environments are in place.

“We also need mechanisms to allow investment, of which a significant amount must come from the private sector, ensuring adequate and timely capital is available for energy solutions.”

“Team-Energy Africa has been given a mandate – to be the SDG7 accelerator from concept to commission. The initiative is to be the single-point integrator of energy stakeholders in Africa.

“The stakeholders are the public and private sector, government institutions and academic institutions, private investors and corporate investors. We need to get Africa to believe in the dream of Africa, invest in Africa and encourage others to invest. 

“We need to engage all of these stakeholders in a structure and ensure projects come to execution and commissioning in time,” notes ECA executive president for West Africa Abdur Omidiya.

The AEC statement concludes that the time is now. “Africa needs a fierce urgency to alleviate energy poverty,” it states.

“For once, we have the private sector coming together with the public sector on a bigger scale. Let us seize this moment to really drive something that works and commit ourselves to action. There is a lot of money in Africa. There are a lot of young people. We have started and we are not holding back.”