Renewable energies in Africa: Current knowledge

And who will be producing the huge amount of product needs for the huge continent of Africa and the long time potential consumer market, not from here the U.S., as to the little private investments into economic growth from the free market capitalist and certainly as long as public investments are obstructed, helped along by the parrots of the special interests of the past some forty years in blocking the growth of an industry with their new needed meme's of climate change denying! By the way, China and others already are, and with what we started developing some forty years back, along with the once experienced innovative trades who not only helped in the development in but the proper installing of!

JRC shares knowledge on renewables in Africa

08 May 2012 - The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission's in-house science service. It has released a report entitled “Renewable energies in Africa: Current knowledge”, with contributions from Institute for Energy and Transport and the Institute for Environment and Sustainability, which screens Africa’s renewable energies potential.

Compared to the rest of the world, there is a general shortage of energy related information in Africa (on potential of energy resources, actual installed systems and current energy use). According to REN-21, this lack of information is even more apparent for renewable energies, and indeed it is indeed difficult to compare the potential for the different energy options due to the scattered validated information.

The JRC’s study aims to redress this information gap by mapping the potential of renewable energy sources in Africa. The report analyses the current energy consumption in Africa and assesses potential of renewable energy sources - solar, wind, biomass and hydropower - and their cost efficiency and environmental sustainability. Its publication coincided with the official European Launch of UN's Year on "Sustainable Energy for All" earlier this year.

According to the JRC study, the high share of rural population, coupled with the low ability and willingness to pay (affordability), the low per capita energy consumption and the high rate of non-electrified rural areas, has traditionally pushed rural communities to make use of locally available energy sources, mostly biomass from agriculture residues and forest ad savannah wood for their daily cooking and heating needs. read more>>>