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Unlocking Bio-Energy Potential in Africa: A Path to Sustainable Development

January 10 2024 I News and Views

Bio-energy presents a transformative opportunity for Africa, offering a sustainable solution to the continent’s energy challenges while driving economic and environmental benefits. Recent studies and reports from ScienceDirect and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) provide valuable insights into the significant potential of biofuels and bio-energy in Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting both the opportunities and the necessary steps for realising this potential.

The ScienceDirect article explores the current state and future prospects of bio-energy in Africa, emphasising the continent’s rich resources and the potential for biofuels to contribute to energy security and economic development. Africa's vast agricultural lands and abundant biomass resources, including crop residues, animal waste, and dedicated energy crops, provide a solid foundation for bio-energy production. The article highlights that bio-energy can play a crucial role in diversifying Africa's energy mix, reducing reliance on imported fossil fuels, and providing reliable energy access to rural and underserved areas.

IRENA’s report further underscores the biofuel potential in Sub-Saharan Africa, detailing the benefits and challenges associated with bio-energy deployment. According to the report, biofuels can offer significant advantages, including reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved soil fertility through the use of biochar, and enhanced rural livelihoods through job creation and local energy production. However, realising these benefits requires overcoming several challenges, such as the need for improved infrastructure, technology development, and supportive policy frameworks.

Producing energy from bio-based materials, advocates suggest, offers a means for Africa to take a huge leap towards net zero carbon emissions. It will, they say, also  boost rural livelihoods and reduce the cost of importing fuel.

Bio-based materials can provide energy in multiple ways. Certain crops can be used to produce ethanol, which can then be blended with gasoline to produce fuel for vehicles. Ethanol can also be used in cooking stoves, providing a cleaner alternative to wood or charcoal. Alternatively, crops – or their waste products – can be burned to generate electricity.

Of course, Africa already relies on biomass for energy. The International Energy Agency estimates that over 80% of the continent’s population uses biomass – mainly firewood and charcoal – for cooking.

But production of biofuels on a commercial scale in Africa has been very limited – the giant commercial biofuel plantations seen in Brazil and parts of Southeast Asia remain uncommon in Africa.

Untapped Opportunity

For example, British entrepreneur Richard Bennett established Sunbird Bioenergy in 2015, having identified an “untapped opportunity” to use biofuels to help provide Zambia with cheaper fuel. In the absence of domestic oil production, the country has long been forced to import petroleum through Tanzania – a consequence of inefficient supply chains is higher prices, exacerbated at times with falling exchange rates.

Sunbird Bioenergy uses a local feedstock, cassava, widely grown, as a feedstock for a biorefinery in Luapula province that is designed to produce 120m litres of ethanol a year. The company says that this will be equivalent to 20% of Zambia’s petroleum use and will help the country reduce its import bill by $100m.

Adopting international experiences of biofuel production, yet being very cognisant of an African context or interpretation is important. Indeed, it would not be feasible to simply seek to ‘important’ the Brazilian model of bio-fuels, which whilst highly successful rests of decades of mechanised agriculture on huge plantations. Replicating in Africa could very well require the eviction of millions of rural smallholders or turning rainforests into commercial farms, which would be untenable for most. Alternatively, a more decentralised and distributed approach is likely to be successful in Africa, and in doing so harnessing bio-based materials for energy production over the long term.