Africa Has the Energy to Power the World. Why Can’t It Power Itself?

I have had a busy week, but I still managed to monitor this year’s African Energy Week in Cape Town from Nairobi. Between the billion-dollar deals, oil discoveries and ambitious speeches about Africa’s energy future, I kept wondering whether anyone had remembered to switch on the electricity for the people whose resources everyone was so excited about. Africa has enough oil, gas and minerals make the world’s biggest investors sit up straight, yet hundreds of millions of its people still struggle to keep the lights on. Even South Africa, the continent’s industrial powerhouse, has spent years grappling with Eskom’s load-shedding, turning electricity schedules into an unexpected part of daily life. Imagine sitting on some of the world’s richest energy resources and still having to plan your dinner, business meeting or Netflix episode around a power cut. As I followed the proceedings, one question refused to go away: how can Africa be rich enough to fuel the world’s ambitions but still leave so many of its own people wondering whether the next thing to go off will be the lights, the Wi-Fi or their patience?

The most revealing number to emerge from African Energy Week in Cape Town was not the $10 billion in deals that an industry executive said had already materialised. It was the more than 560 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who still lack access to electricity.

As I monitored the proceedings of the five-day gathering, which ran from October 12 to 16, that contrast offered a way to understand the competing visions of Africa’s energy future. Inside the conference, executives and government officials discussed investment, oil discoveries, gas exports and the promise of industrialisation. Outside, climate activists challenged the fossil fuel industry’s claims to be advancing Africa’s development.

Both sides were responding to a genuine problem. Africa needs substantially more energy to support its population, businesses and industrial ambitions. But the continent’s resource wealth has yet to translate into universal electricity access, and expanding production does not automatically guarantee that it will.

The International Energy Agency estimated in its World Energy Investment 2025 report that about 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lacked electricity access. It also found that South Africa and North Africa, together representing less than 20% of the region’s population, accounted for more than 45% of energy investment and over 65% of installed electrical capacity.

The imbalance is fundamental. The continent does not simply need more energy projects. It needs an economic model that connects investment in energy resources to electricity access, domestic manufacturing, employment and lower costs for households.

That was the larger question behind the optimism in Cape Town: Can Africa convert its position as a supplier of the world’s energy and transition minerals into a more prosperous future for its own people?

The billions are arriving. What will they buy?

Verner Ayukegba, senior vice president of the African Energy Chamber, offered one measure of the industry’s momentum.

“This year at AEW, we have already seen 10 billion dollars worth of deals,” he said.

Ayukegba cited developments involving Angolan energy company Etu Energias and legacy assets associated with Chevron, gas projects in Senegal, Nigerian gas supply for the Train 7 liquefied natural gas project and the proposed Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline.

The figures signal investor interest in Africa’s hydrocarbons and infrastructure. But they also need context. The value of announced transactions is not necessarily equivalent to new capital invested, completed infrastructure or additional electricity supplied to African consumers.

The distinction became clearer in another announcement. Fifteen oil, gas and power projects presented at the conference’s Deal Room were seeking more than $16 billion in investment, according to the event organisers. The proposals covered exploration, production, infrastructure, downstream facilities and gas-fired power generation.

These were funding requirements, not evidence that the money had been secured.

The difference matters because the continent’s energy financing problem is substantial. The IEA’s 2025 report on financing electricity access found that less than $2.5 billion annually was being directed towards electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa, far below what is required to achieve universal access.

The same report said approximately 600 million people in the region lacked electricity in 2024, equivalent to 47% of its population.

That gap between the financing available for basic electricity access and the capital required for large-scale energy developments should concern policymakers. Megaprojects can be economically transformative, but they do not necessarily provide the cheapest or fastest route to connecting remote households.

Extending national grids, building mini-grids and deploying standalone solar systems will all be necessary in places where conventional infrastructure is prohibitively expensive.

The challenge is to finance these different approaches while ensuring that energy investment also supports productive economic activity.

Godfrey Moagi, chief executive of the South African National Petroleum Company, made that point when discussing the relationship between energy supply, data centres and employment.

“We’ve got a very big opportunity. We’re [going to add] more data centers, you’ve got a lot of gas, you need a lot of energy. And I think we are going to have to do that to deal with unemployment,” he said.

He argued that developing industries around energy production could have a greater economic effect than extraction alone.

It is an important distinction. An oil field creates jobs and export revenues, but an economy that also develops equipment manufacturing, engineering, petrochemicals, processing facilities and other energy-intensive industries can retain more value at home.

Africa’s energy future will depend partly on whether its governments can turn individual projects into these broader industrial ecosystems.

The resource-rich continent that cannot afford its own energy

Africa’s natural endowment makes the development challenge particularly striking.

The continent holds approximately 125 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, representing 7.2% of the global total, according to Al Jazeera. It also held nearly 18 trillion cubic metres of proven natural gas reserves at the end of 2023.

Nigeria and Algeria account for about 58% of Africa’s proven gas reserves, while Mozambique holds substantial undeveloped offshore resources. Libya and Nigeria together account for nearly 70% of the continent’s proven oil reserves.

Yet the distribution of resources does not correspond to the distribution of electricity access.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, generated all its electricity from renewable sources in 2024, according to the same report, but only 22.5% of its population had access to electricity. In South Sudan, the access rate was just 5.4%.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, had an electricity access rate of 62.5%, leaving roughly 85 million people without power.

These figures demonstrate why electricity generation and electricity access must be treated as separate policy objectives. A country can possess enormous energy resources, or generate power from renewable sources, without building the transmission networks, distribution infrastructure and financing systems needed to reach households.

The World Health Organization and partner agencies reported in June 2026 that more than 560 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lacked electricity and 970 million lacked access to clean cooking. They warned that the pace of electrification in the region must triple to achieve universal access by 2030.

Electricity access is also an economic question. Small manufacturers cannot operate efficiently without reliable power. Farmers lose opportunities when they cannot refrigerate produce. Hospitals need dependable electricity for essential equipment. Students cannot study comfortably after dark, while digital businesses face higher operating costs when they must rely on backup generators.

For countries seeking to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure, data centres and advanced manufacturing, the consequences are particularly significant. These industries require reliable, often power-intensive infrastructure, and investors can choose to build elsewhere when electricity is expensive or unstable.

Africa’s resource wealth is therefore only one part of its competitive advantage. The other is its ability to deliver energy at the price and reliability businesses require.

TotalEnergies makes the case for African energy sovereignty

Mike Sangster, TotalEnergies’ senior vice president for Africa, placed national decision-making at the centre of his address at the conference’s opening ceremony.

“Every country must be free to shape its energy policy and develop its resources. This is a conviction we share at TotalEnergies,” he said.

His argument was that African governments should not be expected to follow a single template for the energy transition. Countries have different resource endowments, electricity deficits, industrial priorities and fiscal constraints. Their energy policies, he said, should reflect those differences.

Sangster also emphasised the scale of the access challenge, citing approximately 550 million Africans without electricity. He highlighted Mission 300, an initiative aiming to connect 300 million people in Africa to electricity by 2030, and said more than 50 million people had been connected since 2024.

TotalEnergies presented its investments in Mozambique, Namibia, Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa as evidence of its commitment to the continent.

In Mozambique, Sangster highlighted the restart of the company’s liquefied natural gas project, which is expected to generate export revenue, employment and government income. He said the project had trained more than 4,000 local workers and could generate approximately $35 billion in government revenues over its lifetime.

In Namibia, the company pointed to offshore discoveries, including Venus and Mopane, as opportunities to establish a significant new petroleum industry. In Uganda and Tanzania, the Tilenga and Kingfisher oil developments and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline represent another attempt to link resource development with export infrastructure and local economic activity.

Sangster cited approximately 90,000 direct and indirect jobs during construction and $2 billion in spending with local companies for the East African projects.

These are company figures and projections, rather than independently verified measures of the projects’ eventual economic effects. Their significance will depend on how much employment is sustained, how much business goes to local suppliers and how effectively governments convert revenues into public services and infrastructure.

Investment certainty is important. So are transparent contracts, public accountability and safeguards for communities affected by energy development.

Energy sovereignty should mean more than the right to extract resources. It should include the ability to determine how those resources contribute to national development.

The climate bill cannot be ignored

The conflict between energy access and climate responsibility was visible beyond the conference’s investment discussions.

On October 13, Greenpeace Africa activists challenged oil and gas companies at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, calling on them to contribute to the costs of climate damage and to redirect investment towards renewable energy.

Sherelee Odayar, Greenpeace Africa’s oil and gas campaigner, said: “They are toasting more drilling while families in the Eastern Cape are still rebuilding homes the floods took. The companies in that hall made billions from the fuels heating our continent. Africa is paying the bill. Today we handed it back. Pay up.”

The protest followed the African Energy Chamber’s promotion of a “Drill Baby Drill” wine at the event. Greenpeace responded with a campaign called “Pay Baby Pay”, demanding that fossil fuel companies contribute to loss and damage, adaptation and community recovery.

The Associated Press also reported protests in Cape Town against new oil and gas exploration, reflecting opposition to projects that campaigners argue could prolong fossil fuel dependence and increase climate risks.

The dispute is not easily resolved. African governments have legitimate reasons to pursue energy security, industrialisation and revenue from resources that international companies have the capital and expertise to develop. But communities facing floods, droughts and other climate-related hazards also have legitimate demands for protection and accountability.

The energy transition must therefore be assessed not only by how much new capacity is built, but also by its affordability, emissions, resilience and impact on communities.

South Africa offered one example of a diversified approach. Sangster highlighted TotalEnergies’ Hydra solar and battery storage project, inaugurated in July, saying its expected annual electricity output was equivalent to the consumption of about 200,000 South African households.

Renewable power and storage can help diversify electricity supplies, although projects of this kind still require grid infrastructure, financing and effective integration into national power systems.

The IEA reported that private-sector clean-energy investment in Africa rose from about $17 billion in 2019 to nearly $40 billion in 2024, driven by growth in low-emissions electricity investment. It also found that public and development finance for African energy projects had fallen by about one-third over the preceding decade, reaching $20 billion in 2024.

That combination presents both an opportunity and a warning. Private investment is growing, but public and development finance remains important for projects serving poorer communities and markets where commercial returns are uncertain.

The test comes after Cape Town

The Russian Export Center’s delegation of 13 companies to African Energy Week offered another indication of international interest in the continent’s energy sector. The companies sought partnerships in drilling, production, pipelines, industrial equipment, instrumentation, control systems and digital infrastructure.

For African buyers, the opportunity is to compare suppliers and negotiate arrangements that improve reliability, reduce costs and build local technical capabilities. But participation in a business mission is not proof of contracts secured or investment delivered.

The same standard should apply to the larger deals announced at the conference.

As I monitored the proceedings, the question that mattered most was not whether Africa could attract more investors. It was whether those investors could help build an energy system that serves more than export markets and a narrow group of industrial customers.

The continent needs energy projects that generate revenue, but it also needs distribution networks, mini-grids, renewable power, storage and financing that bring electricity within reach of households and small businesses. It needs local workers to gain technical skills, domestic companies to enter supply chains and governments to manage resource revenues in the public interest.

African Energy Week brought together the companies, financiers and policymakers capable of advancing those goals. The $10 billion in deals cited by Ayukegba and the more than $16 billion in funding sought by projects presented in the Deal Room illustrate the scale of ambition.

They do not yet tell us how much of that ambition will become reliable electricity, industrial capacity or lasting employment.

That is the distinction Africa must confront. Resource wealth is a starting point, not a development strategy. Energy sovereignty is meaningful only when countries have the infrastructure and institutions to make choices that improve people’s lives.

The measure of success will not be the number of signatures collected in Cape Town. It will be whether, years from now, more African factories are operating competitively, more businesses can rely on affordable power and fewer families are left in the dark.

Until that happens, the continent’s energy paradox will remain unresolved: extraordinary natural wealth, immense investment potential and millions of people still waiting for the most basic benefit that energy can provide.

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