Download or read book Electricity in Africa written by Christopher D. Gore and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2017 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the history of electricity provision in Africa and the effects of privatization and infrastructure changes in energy transformation, offering a critical window into development politics in African states. No country has managed to develop beyond a subsistence economy without ensuring at least minimum access to electricity for the majority of its population. Yet many sub-Saharan African countries struggle to meet demand. Why is this, and what can be done to reduce energy poverty and further Africa's development? Examining the politics and processes surrounding electricity infrastructure, provision and reform, the author provides an overview of historical andcontemporary debates about access in the sub-continent, and explores the shifting role and influence of national governments and of multilateral agencies in energy reform decisions. He describes a challenging political environment for electricity supply, with African governments becoming increasingly frustrated with the rules and the processes of multilateral donors. Civil society also began to question reform choices, and governments in turn looked to new development partners, such as China, to chart a fresh path of energy transformation. Drawing on over fifteen years of research on Uganda, which has one of the lowest levels of access to electricity in Africa and has struggled to construct several, large hydroelectric dams on the Nile, Gore argues that there is a critical need to recognize how the changing political and social context in African countries, and globally, has affected the capacity tofulfil national energy goals, minimize energy poverty and transform economies. Christopher Gore is Associate Professor, Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. OA EDITION This book has been made available as Open Access through the support of the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University; Ryerson International; and the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University.
Download or read book Electric Capitalism written by David A. McDonald and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-16 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Africa is the most under-supplied region of the world for electricity, its economies are utterly dependent on it. There are enormous inequalities in electricity access, with industry receiving abundant supplies of cheap power while more than 80 per cent of the continent's population remain off the power grid. Africa is not unique in this respect, but levels of inequality are particularly pronounced here due to the inherent unevenness of 'electric capitalism' on the continent. This book provides an innovative theoretical framework for understanding electricity and capitalism in Africa, followed by a series of case studies that examine different aspects of electricity supply and consumption. The chapters focus primarily on South Africa due to its dominance in the electricity market, but there are important lessons to be learned for the continent as a whole, not least because of the aggressive expansion of South African capital into other parts of Africa to develop and control electricity. Africa is experiencing a renewed scramble for its electricity resources, conjuring up images of a recolonisation of the continent along the power grid. Written by leading academics and activists, Electric Capitalism offers a cutting-edge, yet accessible, overview of one of the most important developments in Africa today - with direct implications for health, gender equity, environmental sustainability and socio-economic justice. From nuclear power through prepaid electricity meters to the massive dam projects taking place in central Africa, an understanding of electricity reforms on the continent helps shape our insights into development debates in Africa in particular and the expansion of neoliberal capitalism more generally.
Download or read book Electricity Access in Sub Saharan Africa written by Moussa P. Blimpo and published by Africa Development Forum. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Access to reliable electricity is a prerequisite for the economic transformation of African economies, especially in a digital age. Yet the electricity access rate in Sub-Saharan African countries is often substantially low, households and businesses with access often face unreliable service, and the cost of the service is often among the highest in the world. This situation imposes substantial constraints on economic activities, provision of public services, adoption of new technologies, and quality of life. Much of the focus on how best to provide reliable, affordable, and sustainable electricity service to all has been on mitigating supply-side constraints. However, demand-side constraints may be as important, if not more important. On the supply side, inadequate investments in maintenance result in high technical losses; most state-owned utilities operate at a loss; and power trade, which could significantly lower the cost of electricity, is underdeveloped. On the demand side, the uptake and willingness to pay are often low in many communities, and the consumption levels of those who are connected are limited. Increased uptake and use will encourage investment to improve service reliability and close the access gap. This report shows that the fundamental problem is poverty and lack of economic opportunities rather than power. The solution lies in understanding that the overarching reasons for the unrealized potential involve tightly intertwined technical, financial, political, and geographic factors. The ultimate goal is to enable households and business to gain access, to afford to use, and utilities to recover their cost and make profits. The report makes the case that policy makers need to adopt a more comprehensive and long-term approach to electrification in the region--one centered on the productive use of electricity at affordable rates. Such an approach includes increased public and private investment in infrastructure, expanded access to credit for new businesses, improved access to markets, and additional skills development to translate the potential of expanded and reliable electricity access into substantial economic impact. Enhancing the economic capabilities of communities is the best way to achieve faster and more sustainable development progress while addressing the broad challenges of affordability, low consumption, and financial viability of utilities, as well as ensuring equitable provision between urban and rural areas.
Download or read book Energy in Africa written by Manfred Hafner and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book presents a picture of the current energy challenges on the African continent (and the Sub-Saharan region in particular) and proposes pathways to an accelerated energy transition. Starting with an analysis of the status quo and the outlook for Africa’s energy demand and energy access, it provides an account of the available resources, including hydrocarbons and renewable energy resources, which are playing an increasingly crucial role. It then moves on to analyze the level of investment required to scale-up Africa’s energy systems, shedding light on the key barriers and elaborating on potential solutions. It also provides a suggestion for improving the effectiveness of EU–Africa cooperation. While mainly intended for policymakers and academics, this book also speaks to a broader audience interested in gaining an overview of the challenges and opportunities of the African energy sector today and in the future.
Download or read book Electricity Access in Sub Saharan Africa written by Moussa P. Blimpo and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Access to reliable electricity is a prerequisite for the economic transformation of African economies, especially in a digital age. Yet the electricity access rate in Sub-Saharan African countries is often substantially low, households and businesses with access often face unreliable service, and the cost of the service is often among the highest in the world. This situation imposes substantial constraints on economic activities, provision of public services, adoption of new technologies, and quality of life. Much of the focus on how best to provide reliable, affordable, and sustainable electricity service to all has been on mitigating supply-side constraints. However, demand-side constraints may be as important, if not more important. On the supply side, inadequate investments in maintenance result in high technical losses; most state-owned utilities operate at a loss; and power trade, which could significantly lower the cost of electricity, is underdeveloped. On the demand side, the uptake and willingness to pay are often low in many communities, and the consumption levels of those who are connected are limited. Increased uptake and use will encourage investment to improve service reliability and close the access gap. This report shows that the fundamental problem is poverty and lack of economic opportunities rather than power. The solution lies in understanding that the overarching reasons for the unrealized potential involve tightly intertwined technical, financial, political, and geographic factors. The ultimate goal is to enable households and business to gain access, to afford to use, and utilities to recover their cost and make profits. The report makes the case that policy makers need to adopt a more comprehensive and long-term approach to electrification in the region—one centered on the productive use of electricity at affordable rates. Such an approach includes increased public and private investment in infrastructure, expanded access to credit for new businesses, improved access to markets, and additional skills development to translate the potential of expanded and reliable electricity access into substantial economic impact. Enhancing the economic capabilities of communities is the best way to achieve faster and more sustainable development progress while addressing the broad challenges of affordability, low consumption, and financial viability of utilities, as well as ensuring equitable provision between urban and rural areas.
Download or read book Empowering Africa written by Lorenzo Colantoni and published by Global Politics and Security. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Access to electricity is a key factor for the future of the African continent. Energy poverty and lack of universal access to electricity services are, in fact, remarkably hurting human progress in Africa. Today, sub-Saharan Africa hosts 14 percent of the world's population but 60 percent of the world's people without access to electricity: of the more than 1 billion people globally who had no access to electricity, around 600 million lived in the region. In these conditions, many African countries are unable to develop a solid economy or provide basic health and education services to their citizens. Starting from the analysis of present and future economic, demographic, social and technological trends, Empowering Africa offers an in-depth assessment of the current status and of the future prospects of access to electricity in the African continent. The volume describes the main developments in the Africa's electricity sector, addressing the issue both from a regional and a thematic point of view, and attempting to define the key trends of a sector that will necessarily contribute to shape the continent's political, social and economic dynamics for the next decades.
Download or read book The Future of Energy in Africa written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ending Africa s Energy Deficit and the Law written by Yinka Omorogbe and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the inclusion of access to energy in the sustainable development goals, the role of energy to human existence was finally recognized. Yet, in Africa, this achievement is far from realized. Omorogbe and Ordor bring together experts in their fields to ask what is stalling progress, examining problems from institutions catering to vested interests at the continent's expense, to a need to develop vigorous financial and fiscal frameworks. The ramifications and complications of energy law are labyrinthine: this volume discusses how energy deficits can burden disabled people, women, and children in excess of their more fortunate counterparts, as well as considering environmental issues, including the delicate balance between the necessity of water for drinking and cleaning and the use of water in industrial processes. A pivotal work of scholarship, the book poses pressing questions for energy law and international human rights.
Download or read book From the Bottom Up written by Bernard Tenenbaum and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2014-01-23 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report describes the four basic types of on- and off-grid small power producers emerging in Africa and highlights the regulatory and policy questions that must be answered by electricity regulators, rural energy agencies, and ministries to promote commercially sustainable investments by private operators and community organizations.
Download or read book Eskom written by Sylvy Jaglin and published by Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd. This book was released on 2016-08-16 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa’s leading producer of electricity, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, is also a vertically integrated monopoly, owned by the South African state. This national champion was shaken in 2008, when it was obliged to introduce ‘load shedding’, or rolling blackouts, and again in late 2014. Trying to understand how and why one of the iconic pillars of South African state capitalism is now in distress, the authors of this book argue that the so-called electricity crisis is in fact a public monopoly crisis. Moving beyond technical aspects, they explore the relationship between state power and Eskom before, during and after apartheid. From this perspective, they suggest that the current technical and financial troubles of this public utility are illustrative of the weakening of its technopolitical regime, of how national institutions have governed Eskom’s technological development, and of the pursuit of political goals in the production of electrical power. Without a clear industrial strategy during the 2000s, Eskom became a powerful tool of Broad-Black Economic Empowerment as well as a neopatrimonial system which generates profits captured by the ruling party. As a result, crisis in Eskom shakes the whole political edifice. Inefficient and its finances increasingly under scrutiny, this state-owned enterprise’s existence as a monopolistic public utility is regularly a subject of debate. The authors discuss the ambivalent role of Eskom in the national energy transition policy and whether solutions point in the direction of de-integrating this public monopoly and allowing its current technopolitical regime to enter a planned or natural decline.
Download or read book The Power of the Mine written by Sudeshna Ghosh Banerjee and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mining industry could play a key role in Africa s energy sector, since it requires power in large quantity and reliable quality to run its processes. The integration of mining with power system development, with appropriate risk mitigation mechanisms, could bring a win-win solution to utilities, mines, and people at large.
Download or read book Political Economies of Energy Transition written by Kathryn Hochstetler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows that economic concerns about jobs, costs, and consumption, rather than climate change, are likely to drive energy transition in developing countries.
Download or read book Energy Resources in Africa written by Herick Othieno and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-10-16 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides information on the distribution of the available energy resources throughout the continent and how it is linked to the development of individual states. Africa is considered one of the poorest continents in the world, mainly because its development has historically depended on imported resources including technical expertise. This view and its associated resource management strategy are based on the perception that Africa lacks sufficient energy resources to drive its development agenda. Analyses of individual countries’ energy potentials, exploitation levels and distribution mechanisms are provided with a view to identifying additional factors that are stifling Africa’s economic development. One critical factor is the relationship between available energy resources and the energy mixes chosen by different states, and how these can be exploited to produce the right blend of energy for various applications such as industrial, transport, domestic, and recreational uses. The authors provide an in-depth analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of different energy sources in terms of their environmental, industrialization and distribution costs, impacts, and the development options best suited for improving Africa’s economic situation. This analysis is based on the assertion that Africa is indeed blessed with abundant energy resources, which have not been effectively exploited. The book not only reviews Africa’s energy situation in general, but also reveals that, while there are certainly circumstances peculiar to individual countries, the similarities, especially within Sub-Saharan African countries, outweigh the differences. That being said, the challenges and available opportunities in each country should be viewed with due consideration given to the prevailing national resource management environment. Many initiatives in Africa fail because of the many loopholes in the management structures, which allow corruption, theft, and mere selfishness to thrive. In addition to the negative impacts of these factors on implementation activities, there is also a general lack of institutional support for initiatives that could otherwise be very progressive. Thus, taken together, these retrogressive practices stifle African energy development plans. The book offers a valuable guide for developers, investors, researchers and environmentalist, providing in-depth insights on the relationship between available energy resources and development trends in Africa. "By harnessing the wind and sun, your vast geothermal energy and rivers for hydropower, you can turn this climate threat into an economic opportunity." US President Obama's address to the African Union (2015)
Download or read book Privatization and Alternative Public Sector Reform in Sub Saharan Africa written by K. Bayliss and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-11-12 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: it is increasingly apparent that the privatization experiment in sub-Saharan Africa has failed. This book shows that the state is set to dominate service delivery for the foreseeable future in much of the region, and that the public sector must be considered as a viable policy option for the delivery of water and electricity.
Download or read book Solar Electric Systems for Africa written by Mark Hankins and published by Commonwealth Secretariat. This book was released on 1995 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about making solar electricity available to people in rural Africa. It describes how, with guidance from an electrician, anyone can adapt a solar electric system to their own needs. Thirteen chapters cover the following essential solar electric topics: estimating local solar resource; solar electric, battery, and charge controller choice and technology; choosing lamps, appliances and small tools; low voltage wiring principles and practice; planning, installing and maintaining a system. The revised edition has added a new chapter with information and resources about the solar electric industry in East and Southern Africa. The book also includes planning worksheets, wiring guides, meteorological information and well-illustrated examples.
Download or read book Africa s Power Infrastructure written by Orvika Rosnes and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2011 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa's Power Infrastructure: Investment, Integration, Efficiency is based on the most extensive data collection exercise ever undertaken on infrastructure in Africa: the Africa Country Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD). Data from this study have provided new insights on the extent of a power crisis in the region, characterized by insufficient capacity, low electricity connection rates, high costs, and poor reliabilityùand on what can be done about it. The continent faces an annual power sector financing gap of about $21 billion, with much of the existing spending channeled to maintain and operate high-cost power systems, leaving little for the huge investments needed to provide a long-term solution. Meanwhile, the power crisis is taking a heavy toll on economic growth and productivity. This book asserts that the current impediments to economic growth and development need to be tackled through policies and investment strategies that renew efforts to reform state-owned utilities, build on the lessons of private participation in infrastructure projects, retarget electrification strategies, expand regional power trade, and mobilize new funding resources. Further development of regional power trade would allow Africa to harness larger-scale and more cost-effective energy sources, reducing energy system costs by US$2 billion and carbon dioxide emissions by 70 million tons annually. But reaping the promise of regional trade depends on a handful of major exporting countries raising the large volumes of finance needed to develop generation capacity for export; it also requires a large number of importing countries to muster the requisite political will. With increased utility efficiency and regional power trade in play, power costs would fall and full cost recovery tariffs could become affordable in much of Africa. This will make utilities more creditworthy and help sustain the flow of external finance to the sector, which is essential to close the huge financing gap.
Download or read book Electricity Law in South Africa written by Andreas Klees and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
