Africa Adds Renewables, May “Leapfrog” Over Fossil Fuel Power Plants

Since the dawn of the renewable energy age that started in the late 1990s, everyone began to hope that, as it industrialized, Africa might be able to bypass coal and natural gas-fired power plants and leapfrog directly in to solar, wind, geothermal and hydro.  Two decades later, it appears that this may be a real possibility.

From this:

South Africa, the continent’s most advanced economy, is a clear leader in renewable energy policy and projects. For example it will lead the drive for wind power installations with an additional 3.3 gigawatts added to its energy capacity by 2024, as it both tries to cope with the problems at its national power company, Eskom, and tries to slowly reduce its addiction to coal.  Kenya is also a major leader and opened Africa’s largest wind farm last year and is on course to soon be able to claim 100% renewable energy from a range of sources including geothermal and solar.  Investment in clean energy in sub-Saharan Africa jumped to $7.4 billion in 2018 up from $2.3 billion in 2017. South Africa accounted for $4 billion of investment driven by a major onshore wind project in 2018.

Obviously, this isn’t happening without enormous pushback from Big Oil, as suggested by the 335 million web pages that result from Googling “big oil africa.”