The Economist Asia Edition – July 27, 2019

36 Middle East & Africa The EconomistJuly 27th 2019

F

orget zanzibar, seasoned Africa

hands will tell you. Lamu is the loveliest

island on the Swahili coast. Donkeys ply al-

leyways between ancient buildings clad in

coral. Wooden dhows lie at anchor in its

fishing ports. Private cars are banned.

So plans to build a 1gwcoal-fired power

station, Kenya’s first coal plant, 20km (12

miles) away on the mainland caused dis-

may when they were unveiled in 2013. Is-

landers worried that pollution would dam-

age architecture, despoil the marine

environment and deter tourists. Environ-

mentalists griped that the plant would

greatly increase Kenya’s greenhouse-gas

emissions. They were relieved in June

when an environmental tribunal suspend-

ed the project’s licence pending a more

comprehensive impact assessment.

The government, though, appears not

to have given up. Kenya wants to industri-

alise. Officials maintain that coal power is

cheap and more reliable than renewables.

Some grumble when environmental objec-

tions are raised, given that two-thirds of

Kenya’s electricity already comes from re-

newable energy. “Europe industrialised on

the back of coal,” says a civil servant. “Isn’t

it a bit rich to be talking to us about our car-

bon footprint?”

As things stand, sub-Saharan Africa gets

little of its power from coal. Outside South

Africa (which generates 93% of its electric-

ity from coal) the region boasts just 12 func-

tioning coal-fired power stations. Most are

small. Things are changing, though. Sub-

Saharan governments plan to build dozens

of new coal-fired power stations, accord-

ing to Global Energy Monitor, a watchdog

(see chart). Many are underpinned by Chi-

nese investment.

Crooked officials like the big contracts,

but there are powerful arguments for Afri-

ca to shun coal. One is global. Africa may

not be to blame for climate change, but it

has agreed to help mitigate it. In order to

limit global warming to 1.5oC above pre-in-

dustrial levels, analysts reckon that rich

countries should stop operating coal

plants by 2030, with the rest of the world

following by 2050. A splurge on coal will

make it harder for African countries to up-

hold their end of the bargain.

The prices of wind and solar power in

Africa are competitive with (and in some

places less than) that of coal. Moreover,

claims by countries such as Kenya that coal

is needed for baseload power are uncon-

vincing. No coal plant stays up all the time

(just ask South Africa). Having so much

power coming from the plant in Lamu

would raise concerns about dependability

in Kenya. With over half of its installed ca-

pacity coming from hydropower and geo-

thermal energy, it is already in a good posi-

tion to deal with intermittency problems.

Assuming that electricity demand will

grow by 15% a year, Kenya wants to boost its

peak capacity to 22gwby 2030. That would

be a costly mistake, says Hindpal Jabbal,

the former chairman of Kenya’s Energy

Regulatory Commission. Supply of 2.7gw

already runs well ahead of demand, which

at its daily peak stands at just 1.9gw. Over-

capacity is a growing problem in Africa. “In

the next four years Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanza-

nia, Uganda and Rwanda could find them-

selves in the severe financial predicament

of having too much electricity,” warns Pow-

er Africa, an American government initia-

tive. Adding coal-fired plants, as both Tan-

zania and Kenya are doing, would increase

costs for consumers while generating use-

less electricity.

Botswana is building coal-fired plants

with the intention of selling electricity to

South Africa. But critics note that Eskom,

South Africa’s state-owned power utility, is

in effect insolvent. Other countries are

banking on importing coal to fire their new

plants. “If you do not have indigenous coal

resources, that has huge implications for

your balance of payments,” says Eric Wan-

less of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a

clean-energy research outfit in America.

African states should instead be im-

proving transmission and distribution,

says Mr Wanless. Power cuts are often due

to inadequate maintenance of infrastruc-

ture rather than insufficient supply. Some

countries propose hooking poor rural cus-

tomers up to the grid, but this is expensive.

Given how little power they consume, it

might be more sensible to come up with

off-grid solutions. Solar panels, for exam-

ple, help the poor meet most of their needs.

Rather than bring power from faraway

power plants, distributed generation sys-

tems would provide remote villages with

cheap, flexible and renewable power.

Some African states are reconsidering

coal. Fifty of the 82 planned coal-fired pow-

er stations outside South Africa have been

shelved, says Global Energy Monitor. The

reasons vary. Kenya is facing calls to make

more use of its geothermal resources, only

a fraction of which have been tapped. Geo-

thermal energy is cheaper than coal and as

dependable. Coal allowed the West to in-

dustrialise, but Africa would be better off

embracing 21st-century technology. 7

NAIROBI

Many coal projects in Africa make neither environmental nor financial sense

Coal in Africa

Dirty and dumb

The logic is just as hazy

Climbing plants

Source:GlobalEnergy Monitor *Units 30MW and above

Number of coal-fired power stations*

Selectedcountries,July 2019

010203040

South Africa

Botswana

Mozambique

Tanzania

Kenya

Nigeria

Rest of Africa

Under

preconstruction

Under

construction

In operation