ABSTRACT
Introduction With over half a billion people on the continent lacking access to electricity, Africa faces the challenge of generating more power to meet existing and future demand. For many countries, an opportunity exists to do so in a clean and sustainable manner. The continent is well endowed with renewable energy resources which constitute possible solutions to help meet existing power shortages. Indeed, Africa’s reserves of renewable energy resources are the highest in the world, and the continent has enough renewable energy potential to meet its future energy needs (World Energy Council, 2010). It is estimated that 18 of the top 35 developing countries ranked highest in renewable energy reserves, normalized by annual domestic energy consumption, are located in Africa (Buys et al., 2007). Similarly, at least eight African countries are among the developing world’s most endowed in terms of wind energy potential. While global wind-based electricity generation is still underdeveloped relative to exploitation of other renewable fuels such as hydro, it has grown at an average annual rate of about 30 per cent between 1996 and 2008; making wind one of the world’s fastest-growing energy resources in terms of both coverage and technological innovations. The growth reflects mainly advances in technology and energy security concerns in a decade that saw some of the highest oil prices recorded in history. Climate change considerations have also played a role. However, despite these positive trends and Africa’s potential supply of wind energy, installed capacity of wind-based electricity in Africa, of about 1.1 GW in 2010, does not exceed 0.5 per cent of global capacity. The disparity between potential and extent of exploitation raises questions about constraints to development of wind energy on the continent. The absence of detailed information at the individual project level further restricts developers’ and policy makers’ understanding of the market. The goal of this chapter is to improve understanding of how wind energy markets have been developing in Africa. There are two key objectives: provide a mapping of wind energy potential and projects developed on the continent so far; and identify impediments hindering further development of wind energy markets on the continent. We use a sample of 94 wind projects in Africa to perform what we believe is the first continent-wide mapping for the markets.
