Renewable Energy In Africa  

WorldWatch has a report from Africa, the "clean energy frontier" - African Renewable Energy Gains Attention.

The potential for renewable energy development in Africa is experiencing an increase in attention lately as investors and world leaders seek a new clean energy frontier.

The continent could become a gold mine for renewable energy due to abundant solar and wind resources. But roadblocks to clean energy worldwide are amplified throughout the troubled regions of Africa - financial resources are thin and infrastructure is often unreliable.

Meeting at the Africa Carbon Forum in Senegal's capital Dakar last week, United Nations officials, World Bank specialists, and business leaders exchanged strategies for "Clean Development Mechanism" (CDM) projects on the continent - greenhouse gas-reducing initiatives that industrialized countries can support as a way to compensate for their excess emissions. A theme throughout the meetings was the possibility of future CDM projects under a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, especially if the United States joins the market.

Yet so far, Africa has benefited the least among all continents from the $7 billion annual CDM market. Since the European Union began trading "carbon credits" through its Emissions Trading Scheme in 2005, only 27 of the 1,156 CDM projects included under the scheme have been registered in Africa, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told the carbon forum.

But a World Bank report [PDF] released on Monday provides further evidence of the continent's potential. Sub-Saharan Africa could provide more than 170 gigawatts of additional power-generation capacity - more than double the region's current installations - through 3,200 "low-carbon" energy projects, such as combined heat-and-power, biofuels production, mass transportation, and energy efficiency, according to the report. ...

A researcher from the European Commission's Institute for Energy reported earlier this year that 0.3 percent of the sunlight that shines on the Sahara and Middle East deserts could supply all of Europe's energy needs. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have supported plans to build a 45 billion Euro ($64 billion) "super grid" that would connect renewable energy resources across Europe and Africa.

Along the Great Rift Valley - a 6,000 kilometer terrain stretching from Syria to Mozambique - a huge amount of untapped geothermal energy may soon be developed. In June, Kenya announced that it would install some 1,700 megawatts of geothermal capacity within the next 10 years - 150 percent of the country's total electricity generating capacity. Djibouti plans to supply nearly all of its electricity needs through geothermal energy, with the help of Reykjavik Energy Invest and the World Bank.