Political will needed to create single electricity market for Africa

It will take political will, investment in energy infrastructure, and skills development for the Africa Continental Power System Masterplan (CMP) to be implemented successfully, according to energy experts attending the Africa Energy Indaba.

Africa Energy Indaba

Despite describing the plan for a single electricity market on the continent as an ambitious target, Professor Mosad Elmissiry – the head of energy programmes and senior energy advisor to the chief executive officer at the African Union (AU) Development Agency-NEPAD – says Africa should nonetheless endeavour to have a unified electricity market to tackle its energy challenges.

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“The continental masterplan it’s a vision for the African continent that directs our operation from now and 40 years from now. We need to plan what we generate to meet our load demand now and as it progresses with time.

“The continental masterplan covers both generation and transmission, where eventually we’ll have one continental electricity market,” he said.

Elmissiry explained the objectives of the CMP during a panel discussion on Wednesday, on the African power market, at the Africa Energy Indaba taking place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

The discussion around the AU’s strategy to create a single electricity market on the continent through integrated power pools took centre stage at the conference, with experts saying the plan had the potential to address energy poverty on the continent.

The strategy for a single electricity market is expected to be completed and submitted for approval and adoption at the AU Summit scheduled to be held in February next year.

Regional energy markets

Elmissiry said if African states can start by creating regional energy markets, by connecting their power utilities, this can eventually lead to a continental energy market that is able to connect with other continents.

“In fact, we are already connected to Europe via Morocco. There is a link between Morocco and Spain. Egypt is already connected with Jordan and Asia. And there is already a link between Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

“Egypt has got plans to connect Cyprus and Greece. It’s the same for Algeria, Tunisia and Namibia – they’ve got plans to connect to Europe,” he said.

Load demand

In order for a single electricity market to be successful on the continent, Elmissiry said it has to meet the gross of the load demand.

“At present, we are not meeting it. There is load shedding in a number of countries now.

“And as we move from one leap to another, our population is growing. We need to increase energy access, we need to increase the rate of urbanisation and development in our continent.

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“We are developing the continental masterplan to predict the gross of the load demand in the short, medium, and longer term. And the prediction is based on what the power pool has in the master plan,” said Elmissiry.

Funding challenges

Another panelist at the gathering, Deon Vrey – a technical director at engineering and advisory firm, Zutari – said Africa had an abundance of energy, especially renewable energy.

Vrey said the Southern Africa power pool plan that was released in 2017 identified a number of projects to integrate the region, however, most of these projects were yet to be developed.

“There are a number of reasons for that and one of the big reasons is funding. I think it’s a really good aspiration to have this continental plan, but if we don’t get to a point where we can actually implement specific projects within the region; it will just remain a dream,” he said.

Skills and infrastructure development

Gcobisa Mashegoana, the head of procurement and generation at Eskom, raised concerns about the lack of skills development and energy infrastructure on the continent to implement the CMP once it is adopted by the AU.

“All that necessitates a substantial huge capital investment both from the public and the private sector. We have to also focus on social investment.

“We find ourselves sitting with these huge plans but we don’t have adequate skills to start implementing this,” she said.

Mashegoana added that it was never too early to start having a conversation about a single continental electricity market.

She said the master plan would also assist in tackling the problem of climate change.

“It will take time to be able to put all the things that I’ve mentioned into place and the starting point is to review the existing patent in terms of energy production together with energy consumption.”

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