Energy experts are pushing for increased investment in renewable energy by East African countries in order to increase electricity supply and decrease overreliance on hydropower.

In a report published recently, University of California’s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (Rael) and environmental group International Rivers recommend that the region’s energy investments consider climate change, which could affect output.

“We recommend that the EAPP increase their investment in non-hydro renewables — notably geothermal, solar and wind generation capacity — to avoid large losses due to variable generating capacity of hydroelectric units,” the energy experts said in their report, A Clean Energy Vision for East Africa.

“Hydropower is prone to the greatest time overruns and the largest amount of a cost overrun. Wind and solar projects are much less prone to cost overruns.”

The EAPP (East Africa Power Pool) is a grouping of countries, most of which are in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa trading bloc.

Established in 2005 by 10 countries — Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya — to facilitate and secure supply of power at the cheapest possible cost, it is currently supported by the US government, the European Union, the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

With the exception of Egypt, the other countries have poor access to electricity, at just under 25 per cent of their populations.

Although these efforts are meant to boost supply of electricity, energy experts at Rael say there is a missing link in the plan.

“The traditional approach to increasing energy access by simply focusing efforts to expand the electricity grid and investing in large, centralised projects does not address energy, poverty and access,” they said. “Mini-grids and community energy programmes can greatly build local energy access and economic opportunity, and can be the ‘seeds’ of growing regional grids,” the report said.

The researchers studied EAPP’s programmes to improve access to electricity but found that most of the big dam projects are targeted at the pool rather than local rural energy needs.

“Connecting to the grid does not simply imply that households will have sufficient resources to support electricity consumption,” they argued.

Pan-African grid

EAPP will rely on bilateral agreements, but it intends to pool countries’ energy resources by interconnecting grids starting in 2020. This initiative received a boost early last month, when the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) said four regional power corridors will form the building blocks of the pan-African grid.

The project could face challenges, but economists say it can be viable if done properly.

“The connections are viable but will obviously be expensive given the terrain and current levels of electricity production and consumption,” said Cliff Otega, managing director and head of energy and natural resources at Standard and Mutual. “But they will be a major game-changer in Africa’s economic leap forward.”

Zemedeneh Negatu, managing partner and head of transaction advisory services for consulting firm Ernst & Young in Ethiopia said grid connections could benefit the region by lowering the cost of power.

Citing Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam and Kenya’s geothermal power, he said the region could benefit from surplus production, which in turn would lower the price of electricity further than if each country embarked on establishing expensive power plants.

“One of the major benefits of cross-border power investment is that it promotes regional economic integration through increased trade and investments,” Mr Negatu said.