Why Africa’s Energy Supply Gap Is Its Defining Commercial Opportunity – OpEd
Nearly 600 million people across Africa still lack access to electricity, with electrification progress barely keeping pace with population growth and leaving the continent far from universal access targets. Achieving full access will require electricity-access investment to scale toward around $15 billion annually, according to the IEA, yet tracked financing commitments remain below $2.5 billion per year, underscoring a profound capital shortfall.
This mismatch – vast, guaranteed demand paired with chronic under-investment – is precisely what creates durable commercial opportunity. Energy demand across Africa is projected to rise sharply through 2030, driven by urbanization, industrialization, electrification and emerging high-consumption sectors such as data centers. Sub-Saharan Africa contains the majority of the global population without electricity, while the continent hosts 20% of the world’s population but receives only........
