Africa needs context-relevant evidence to shape its clean energy future

Mulugetta, Yacob; Sokona, Youba; Trotter, Philipp A.; Fankhauser, Samuel; Omukuti, Jessica; Croxatto, Lucas Somavilla; Steffen, Bjarne; Tesfamichael, Meron; Abraham, Edo; Adam, Jean-Paul; Agbemabiese, Lawrence; Agutu, Churchill; Aklilu, Mekalia Paulos; Alao, Olakunle; Batidzirai, Bothwell; Bekele, Getachew; Dagnachew, Anteneh G.; Davidson, Ogunlade; Denton, Fatima; Diemuodeke, Ogheneruona E.; Egli, Florian; Eshetu, Gebrekidan Gebresilassie; Gebreslassie, Mulualem G.; Goundiam, Mamadou; Gujba, Haruna Kachalla; Hailu, Yohannes G.; Giarola, Sara; Hirmer, Stephanie; Osiolo, Helen Hoka; Howells, Mark; Isah, Abdulrasheed; Kammen, Daniel M.; Kemausuor, Francis; Khennas, Ismail; Kruger, Wikus; Malo, Ifeoma; Mofor, Linus; Nago, Minette; Nock, Destenie; Ouedraogo, S. Nadia; Probst, Benedict; Schmidt, Maria; Schmidt, Tobias S.; Shenga, Carlos; Sokona, Mohamed; Steckel, Jan Christoph; Sterl, Sebastian; Tembo, Bernard; Tomei, Julia; Twesigye, Peter; Watson, Jim; Winkler, Harald; Yussuff, Abdulmutalib

doi:10.1038/s41560-022-01152-0

Cited by 35 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(82 reference statements)

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“…The outcome appears to be a similar political economy situation for gas as currently for coal: governments support their domestic industry to expand overseas by financing power plants and other gas-related infrastructure overseas [i1, i7, i9, i11] [51,52]. This trend is particularly important in the current policy context, where African countries invest in gas extraction to meet the rising demand for liquefied natural gas from European countries [53,54].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pushed to finance? Assessing technology export as a motivator for coal finance abroad

Manych,

Egli,

Ohlendorf

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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The construction of new coal-fired power plants is frequently financed by banks from abroad. Recent studies suggest that the opportunity to export technology is a relevant ‘push factor’ for such financing activities. In this paper, we provide first quantitative evidence for this hypothesis on a global scale. We construct a novel dataset that tracks both public and private financial involvement on a coal unit level, including information on equipment manufacturers and service providers. The findings indicate that financial institutions from various countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, and Western nations provide loans to coal units overseas. These finance flows, particularly from publicly owned banks, are accompanied by technology exports from the same country. Complementing our quantitative analysis with semi-structured interviews, we find indications that political economy factors, such as public banks’ requirement for participation of domestic firms in financing deals and the unlocking of export business opportunities for domestic industries in financing countries, contribute to this correlation. Our findings highlight the importance of financing countries and their domestic industries for low-carbon transitions globally.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pushed to finance? Assessing technology export as a motivator for coal finance abroad

Manych,

Egli,

Ohlendorf

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Renewable energy technologies and incentives have not been distributed evenly across communities. There are regional differences in resource costs that can affect access and adoption of renewable energy, such as country-specific levelized costs of electricity from utility-scale solar PV across Africa (Mulugetta et al 2022). Research also demonstrates that residential solar PV adoption skews toward wealthier, whiter, and more advantaged communities.…”

Section: Accessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating equity and justice in low-carbon energy transitions

Kime,

Jacome,

Pellow

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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A low-carbon energy transition is essential for mitigating climate change, but can also cause energy justice and equity impacts on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), low-income, and other frontline communities. Examples include exacerbating energy burden, inaccessibility and unaffordability of low-carbon energy and electric end-use technologies, property value loss and displacement from renewable energy siting, and unequal health benefits and employment losses from fossil fuel retirement. To avoid perpetuating historical and creating new injustices, an equitable and just energy transition will require careful planning and execution. To this end, measuring and evaluating the effects of existing and proposed programs and policies aimed at decarbonizing energy systems is critical. However, methods and metrics for evaluating equity effects vary across disciplines and transitions, making it challenging to identify effective evaluation strategies. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the equity implications of low-carbon energy transitions and identifies key metrics that have been used across disciplines to quantify energy injustices and equity impacts. We focus on four key low-carbon energy transitions: (1) renewable energy deployment; (2) fossil fuel infrastructure retirement; (3) transportation electrification; and (4) residential building decarbonization. We classify energy justice and equity metrics into the dimensions of health, access, and livelihood, and construct an analytical framework that supports policymakers, planners and other stakeholders in identifying important equity considerations and quantitatively evaluating the effects of decarbonization initiatives. While our framework can serve as a starting point for evaluating justice and equity impacts of energy transitions, further work is needed to address the limitations of existing metrics and additional evaluation methods will be critical to effect energy transitions that are truly equitable.

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“…Here, we examine universal household electricity access in 43 SSA countries. Acknowledging the importance of considering country heterogeneity in the region's energy future 32 , this paper combines detailed country-level data and electricity demand growth trajectories with open-source energy system modelling and high-resolution geospatial analysis to explore pathways to universal electricity access. Using a scenario-based approach and a new modelling framework that considers electricity demand growth by country (Figure 1, Methods), we examine both reliability of supply and carbon pricing impacts on the shares of off-grid and grid provision of electricity at different demand levels.…”

Section: /36mentioning

confidence: 99%

How reliability and carbon prices impact pathways to universal electricity access in Africa

Beath

Mittal

Few

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Off-grid PV systems have been proposed as a panacea for economies with poor electricity access, offering a lower-cost “leapfrog” over grid infrastructure used in higher-income economies. However, reliability and carbon pricing impacts have been omitted from work that examines pathways to electricity access, underplaying the potential of off-grid PV. We perform high-resolution geospatial analysis on universal household electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa that includes these aspects via least-cost pathways at different electricity demand levels. Under our "Tier 3" demand reference scenario, 24% of our study’s 470 million people obtaining electricity access by 2030 do so via off-grid PV. A penalty for unmet demand (0.50 $/kWh) increases this share to 41% and applying a carbon price (around $80/tonne CO2-eq) increases it to 38%. We identify thresholds for policy effectiveness in different regions and highlight the high degree of spatial heterogeneity and the areas where policy intervention may be most effective.

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Africa needs context-relevant evidence to shape its clean energy future

Abstract: Recent debates about Africa's energy future have been heated, often shaped by geopolitical interests, but detached from the context-specific climate and development realities that

Cited by 35 publications

References 37 publications

Pushed to finance? Assessing technology export as a motivator for coal finance abroad

Pushed to finance? Assessing technology export as a motivator for coal finance abroad

Evaluating equity and justice in low-carbon energy transitions

How reliability and carbon prices impact pathways to universal electricity access in Africa

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