Regional Disparities in Africa’s Renewable Energy Transition: Patterns and Drivers

Abstract

Section snippets

Stylized Facts about Renewable Energy Consumption in Africa

The renewable energy consumption trends reveal significant patterns within Africa's renewable energy sector. Per capita renewable energy generation across Africa has grown substantially, increasing from 50 kWh-equivalent to nearly 400 kWh-equivalent (Figure 1). Despite this eight-fold increase, renewable energy consumption per capita remains notably low by global standards (Espoir et al., 2023). This relatively modest growth can be attributed to multiple factors, including rapid population

Literature Review

This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies to expound the dynamics associated with renewable energy consumption across different African regions.

Data and Methodology

This study utilizes panel data on renewable energy consumption and its potential drivers across five regions of Africa for the period 2000–2020 (Figure 7). The classification of African countries by region is shown in Appendix Table A 1. The data was obtained from the African Development Bank (African Development Bank Group, 2024) and World Bank databases (World Bank, 2024). Table 1 presents an overview of the analytical variables. The panel structure of the dataset, with regions representing

Growth Trends in Renewable Energy Consumption

Figure 8 illustrates the annual percentage change in renewable energy consumption from 2000 to 2020, providing insights into dynamic growth trends across Africa’s five regions. The figure highlights substantial year-on-year variations, reflecting the influence of diverse regional policies, resource availability, and infrastructure development on renewable energy adoption. These fluctuations underscore the complex interplay of factors driving renewable energy growth across the continent. Central

Conclusion and Recommendations

The growing urgency to transition to renewable energy, alongside Africa's vast potential for clean energy production, underscores the critical need to address inequalities in renewable energy consumption across the continent. This study provides an in-depth analysis of these disparities across five African regions—Central, East, North, Southern, and West Africa—using World Bank and African Development Bank (AfDB) data from 2000 to 2020. This research comprehensively examines the regional

Uncited reference

Africa Renewable Energy Initiative, 2022; UN Economic Commission for Africa, 2022; World Bank, 2021.

Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available publicly via the links provided within the manuscript.

Funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Declaration of Competing Interest

☒ The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.