Many encomiums have been thrown into this energy summit, but few have taken the time to assess its weakest links. The chain is as strong as the weakest link. This is pertinent here. As Prof. Isa Mazrui lectured us in his documentary “The Africans”, the plight of Africa was and still is seeking Western-cooked solutions to solve basically African problems. The unsuitability of Western solutions still stalks Africa, and this energy summit was no different. This discourse looks at what was missed in this summit and why the solutions adopted may not terminate the energy crunch Africa is baffled with.
A careful scrutiny of Africa’s energy strategy is to “think and act big”. There is a general belief that the bigger the energy project, the more likely it will arrest our energy hunger! Even before I pay attention to the types of energy technologies recommended, the mega size of the projects is the first major weak link.
In Africa, any infrastructural project must be associated with official graft. Nothing is done in Africa unless an official graft changes hands. This harsh reality was not given its due weight anywhere in the energy summit. There is a reckless proclivity to underrate official graft in development projects. It was presumed that a graft-free environment would prevail to ensure energy projects would be realized. However, realities point to corruption-infested procurement services that will quadruple tendering prices, making projects too expensive to shoulder.
Once those projects have been completed, Africa finds itself tied down to Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) that drain national resources and make energy available to the masses just another pipe dream. Therefore, the bigger the project Africa loves to romanticise with is not always the beauty we should cram for. PPA’s despicable signature is all transactions are done in US dollars. When our currencies get devalued for whatever reasons, the burden to pay up these energy loans becomes our manmade nightmare!
Most energy projects are heavily dependent on foreign loans. Such loans have seen, lately, a surge in interest payments. If that is not the only hindrance, we know all debts have to be paid in US dollars. The African Energy Summit did not insist that local currencies be used to offset such loans. Also, the question of whether the loans were the best way to finance energy projects was not adequately exhausted. Since borrowing is expected to be a major source of funding for energy projects, we should expect Africa to sink even deeper into external debts, complicating our ability to execute our own development agenda. We need to remind ourselves that the debtor is always a surety of his creditor. Debts are increasingly becoming modern slavery and nothing else.
The second weakness is an obsession with Western technologies to solve essentially African problems. What was glaring in the eye of the energy summit was the lacuna of African initiatives. Africa has made leaps and bounds in technological breakthroughs but our own inventors were not invited as keynote speakers. Where was the Zimbabwean radio wave inventor Maxwell Chikumbutso? His absence at the African energy summit was deafening. He has channelled radio waves into electric energy that is now powering homes, vehicles, and motorcycles, just to name a few. He has solutions, but Mother Africa is ignoring him that the word of God may be fulfilled: a prophet has no honour in his own home, especially from his own people. An inventor is a seer. He sees things which others cannot.
Radio waves are infinite, while most of the sources of energy considered in the energy summit are finite. Radio waves are available in the sky and are boundless. Therefore, harnessing radio waves to end our energy hunger makes a lot of sense. The beauty of radio waves can achieve what the African Energy Summit has not figured out—decentralization of energy generation, transmission and distribution systems to serve the poor of the poorest in Africa.
African Energy Summit is targeting the centralization of energy solutions, while its decentralization sustenance is the most optimal way to go. Centralized energy systems widen the ownership of solutions and their associated headaches. For example, centralized energy systems create up to a third of power loss, while decentralized energy systems have less than 5% of the power transmission losses. Design power losses must still be paid by the consumers who have not used the lost power during transmission, contributing more to their poverty rather than pulling them out of it!
Highly centralized energy systems tend to be too costly, and when the costs are disbursed to poor communities, suffocating entry barriers are immediately erected. In such a scenario, utility rates tend to be above the ability to pay. Energy may be available, but users have been short-circuited by official graft, poor planning, and designs that didn’t incorporate the plight of the weakest members of society.
Technologies such as nuclear energy look great on paper, but nuclear waste disposal is not well thought out. Are we planning to dump it in the sea, or are we going to seek contractors who can dispose of it for us? How do we know the contractors will not dump it in the sea and pocket the cash? A comprehensive nuclear energy solution demands not only the inclusion of power generation in the equation but also the inclusion of nuclear waste where nuclear power is generated.
Renewable energy was lauded as a missing link, but wanton corruption, as reflected in the runaway PPA, has become another pain in the neck. Official graft has turned economical renewable energy solutions into the most expensive energy projects Africa has encountered. The cost of procuring and installing wind turbines has become an unbearable burden to African governments. African governments that create these hurdles for consumers are rarely taken to task. The real loser is the final consumer of energy services, who pays through the nose to access them.
There has been a multiplicity of institutions to manage power supply, distribution and retailing of the services, soaring the cost to consumers. All this is caused by the high centralization of the power systems. Decentralized energy systems do away with these institutions since the individual homeowners manage their own power needs.
The stark distinction between domestic and industrial power markets ought to be made. Domestic power demands are best served by highly decentralised energy systems, while non-domestic energy systems thrive on the economies of scale of highly centralised energy systems. The energy summit treated them as if they were homogeneous, while they were heterogeneous. Those two different markets call for specialized solutions that will address unique problems facing the disparate markets.
The African Energy Summit was long in fanfare and symbolism, but it is still miles away from understanding the uniqueness of the challenges in the African energy sector. Repeating past mistakes will not generate different results. More money will be squandered in the energy sector, but tangible benefits will be few and far between.
Read more about Tanzania’s Role as Host of the Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit and the Conceiver of the Dar es Salaam Declaration
