Sylva: Africa needs $35bn annual investment to accelerate electricity access

Timipre Sylva, minister of state for petroleum resources, says an annual investment of about $35 billion could provide access to electricity in African communities that lack power supply.

The minister said this on Thursday at the annual symposium and exhibition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) in Lagos, according to a statement issued by Horatius Egua, his senior adviser on media and communications. 

Sylva added that the annual global investment of $25 billion could also help 2.6 billion Africans gain access to clean cooking by 2030.

According to him, the required investment represented only a small fraction of the multi-trillion-dollar global energy investment needed overall.

“The major question that is yet to be answered is whether Africa would benefit from an equitable share in the global investment and growth or will continue to fall behind global standards as encapsulated in the UN’s 17-sustainable development goals (SDGs),” Sylva said.

“Despite the long-term and required drop in demand for fossil fuels, short-term demand and prices remain robust, providing strong commercial justification for their extraction and a need to smooth transition.”

He added that despite contributing less than 6 percent of world energy consumption and 2 percent of total global emissions, the continent needs to shift to cleaner energy use.

Sylva, quoting the International Energy Agency (IEA), said renewable energy was expected to support the growth of electricity from 20 to 50 percent of total energy supply by 2050.

He noted that the remaining energy demand that was impossible to electrify would require cleaner solutions, which could only come from natural gas – the closest ally to renewables.

According to Sylvia, with significantly untapped fossil fuel reserves – which could provide much-needed foreign direct investment and export revenue – Africa had the ability to play a leading role in the transition to a net-zero energy future.

He added that the continent’s huge resources can be harnessed using clean energy technologies.

“And in line with the federal government declaration of years 2021 – 2030 as the ‘Decade of Gas’, we are taking steps to expand and develop the nation’s huge gas resources,” Sylva said.

This, he said, would be through enhanced gas exploration, development, and utilisation schemes which would lead to gas reserves growth, increased gas production, maturation of the domestic and export gas market, as well as gas flare elimination.

Sylva, therefore, called for multiple pathways to energy transition in order to ensure that no country was left behind in the process of achieving net-zero emission by 2060.

“We need to develop bankable projects to scale up access to funding and investment and adopt a mix of energy solutions to address the needs of each country,” he said.