AFRICA has the potential to become a leader in the green energy revolution, according to the Energy Nexus Network (TENN) founder Kandeh Yumkella.
He said Africa sits on 50 percent of the world’s cobalt, significant quantities of manganese, lithium, and all the minerals needed to create batteries systems.
“We can ride the green energy revolution by becoming the lead battery producers,” he said.
Yumkella was part of a panel at the 2022 African Energy Indaba that was discussing the panelists’ vision for Africa in 25 years, the year that the world has to achieve net-zero emissions.
The other panellists include Justice O. Derefaka: ministry of petroleum resources, Nigeria, Standard Bank chairperson Thulani Gcabashe, Abubakar Sambo from the energy commission of Nigeria.
Yumkella said his vision for Africa for 2050 was to have a continent that was modern and industrialised.
“The building blocks for that are the following, by 2050, my dream of energy within that context is that we have an Africa where citizens have universal access to electricity, and modern clean cooking solutions.
“We speak about electrifications, and we forget that 85 percent of citizens in Africa, except South Africa, are still using firewood and charcoal for cooking. Within that context, I dream of Africa that is the lead producer of batteries for renewable energy storage in the world,” Yumkella said.
He said Southern Africa had more than 70 percent of the platinum group of metals that were needed for efficient cells.
“If that knowledge is combined with the facts that Africa has the best solar radiation in the world, we can be the leaders in Hydrogen in the world,” he said.
Gcabashe reiterated Yumkella’s sentiments and said Africa did not want to be in a position that it is just the platinum group metals producers while the continent was not involved in riding the wave.
“Africa has an abundance of renewable resources, particularly solar and wind. The capital cost of installing these systems has drastically dropped over the past ten years,” he said.
Sambo said his vision for the continent was that the African transportation services should be facilitating electric vehicles soon.
“For oil and gas-rich countries like my own (Nigeria), the immediate strategy needed is to shift from petrol and diesel to compressed natural gas, we need to come up with low carbon utilisation of gas,” he said.
Gcabashe said to achieve the 2050 net-zero emission, the just transition needed to be implemented.
“There is tension and contestation regarding the just transition. As much as we can speak to the attractiveness of the future in terms, we cannot pretend that the present does not exist,” he said.
He said that workers should be retrained and upskilled “to have less noise and displacement happening as a result of moving to a renewable regime”, he said.
He said the developed world needs to find ways to transfer funds to developing countries. He said recently South Africa was offered R131 billion at COP26 by France, Germany, the UK, and the US, as well as the European Union to accelerate South Africa’s transition from high carbon to low carbon economy.
“South Africa has set up a finance task team to help with its transition. This should continue in other developing countries,” he said.
