Energy transition creates $ 27tr opportunities for Africa, says IEA expert

NIGERIA and other African countries are now faced with the urgent need to take actions on cleaner energy, which offers new market opportunities valued at $ 27 trillion up till 2050.

This comes as the African Refiners and Distributors Association ( ARDA) expressed concerns over the continent’s growing population, the demand for energy and the escalating energy storage and distribution infrastructure crisis.

Speaking at the 2022 ARDA virtual workshop on ‘ Reducing Carbon Footprint of Africa’s Storage and Distribution Supply Chain’, the International Energy Agency ( IEA) and CITAC Africa also raised concerns about the growing energy demand, lack of refining capacity, inability to diversify productive capacity of the economies as well as the rising emissions, especially gas flaring.

An expert at IEA, Tae- Yoon Kim, said Nigeria and other Sub- Saharan Africa ( SSA) countries provide a significant share of the world’s mineral resources that are critical to clean energy technologies.

According to him, the explosive growth in clean energy deployment over the next decades could create a market opportunity of $ 27 trillion up till 2050 for manufacturers of key equipment.

Fuel cells, electrolysers, battery packs, wind turbines and solar PV modules, which are bi- products of solid minerals like copper, cobalt, manga nese, graphite, platinum, chromium and bauxite, would spur cleaner energ y technologies and a new industry for Africa, the expert said.

Kim noted that Africa’s expansive land and abundant natural resources provide the potential for the production of cost- effective lowcarbon hydrogen from renewables.

Speaking on the projected exponential growth in population, Executive Secretar y, ARDA, Anibor Kragha, said Africa’s fossil fuel demand and import would grow over the next two decades alongside major urban population growth, which could result in increased pollution.

Coming at a time when the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries ( OPEC) is investing in the NigeriaMorocco gas pipeline,

Kragha said there was a need for the continent to invest in pan- African oil and product pipelines.

He decried that Africa has only six countries with crude oil pipelines, eight with products pipelines and six with both crude oil and product pipelines.