Empire of the sun

In ancient Egyptian culture, sun deity Ra was considered the source of all life as the provider of light, warmth and growth. Millennia later, and the country is again looking skywards to meet these needs, in a world where fossil fuels are dying a slow but certain death. Renewable technologies, such as solar and wind power, are now emerging as the hot young upstarts of a new world economy, and seeing a push not only in Egypt, but across the continent.

Africa has long been targeted for its natural resources, with countries invading under both religious and educational guises, but essentially to mine its mineral and agricultural wealth. It was a fertile expanse with low population density, which the “more developed” nations could slice open and empty out with little regard for the environment or local people.

As these foreign economies expanded, it fuelled a growing appetite for energy, pumping out most of the greenhouse gases that have led to the steady climb in global temperatures.

Now, with energy issues creating a new economic battleground, Africa is again being eyed for the potential its natural environment offers, although framed in very different terms. The continent's sunny climate and vast expanses of land, especially the immense tracks of desert in North Africa, have attracted the interest of countries whose own urban clutter limits development of renewable energy infrastructure.

This, coupled with substantial funding earmarked for developing economies as part of the Copenhagen Accord, puts Africa in the pound seat when it comes to future energy investments.

As anyone in the energy business could tell you, coal is so last season. The new energy economy will be built on light beams and water streams, as the elements of electricity generation.

The desert plains in Egypt and other African regions are suited to technologies like concentrated solar power (CSP), which requires space and heat for the fields of mirrors, which focus sunlight for power production.

A study by Greenpeace International, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association, and the International Energy Agency's SolarPaces group last year showed CSP could generate up to 25% of the world's energy needs by 2050, under an advanced industry development scenario.

Obviously, other alternative technologies like wind and hydropower are major players in the renewable mix, but Africa's specific geographical benefits when it comes to solar make it a key focus.

Africa is again being eyed for the potential its natural environment offers, although framed in very different terms.

Lezette Engelbrecht, copy editor and journalist, ITWeb

Several solar and other renewable projects are now in the pipeline across the continent, with Egypt announcing plans this month to build a new $700 million 100MW solar power plant between 2012 and 2017. The Egyptian government has committed to generating 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2020, largely through wind and solar expansion.

Morocco, meanwhile, unveiled a $9 billion solar power scheme earlier this year, to build a network of solar power stations in the hopes of producing 38% of the country's power by the year 2020. Tunisia is also spending $2 billion in expanding renewable power generation.

Back on home soil, government has set a target of 10 000GWh of energy to be produced from renewable sources by 2013, with the renewable energy feed-in tariff (Refit) giving clean tech projects a leg-up in an economy where 90% of electricity generation is coal-based.

Significantly, $200 million of the World Bank's $3.75 billion loan to help stabilise our energy supply will go to a 100MW CSP plant in Upington, in the Northern Cape. If realised, it will be one of the largest grid-connected renewable energy ventures in any developing country.

And that's just for the continent's own supply. Add the potential to export this to European countries and the outlook begins to look really sunny. Egypt, for example, is considering exporting solar energy to southern Europe as part of the Desertec initiative - a multinational collaboration to generate carbon-free power in the deserts of North Africa. This could help extend these deserts' energy potential to provide sustainable power supply to regions across the world.

According to a TRANS-CSP study, 17% of Europe's energy requirements may be met by solar imports by 2050.With Africa's abundant solar resources and Europe's technology knowhow, these kinds of partnerships could lay the industrial and skills base for renewable energy generation in Africa, strengthen international collaboration, and free up the continent's energy market.

So, with the ideas in place, the technology improving by the day, and interest growing, all that remains is the all-important kching factor. Luckily, the first three happen to coincide with a new fervour in clean tech funding, as a report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) revealed this month.

It said investment in sustainable energy in the first six months of 2010 was up around 22%, to $65 billion, compared with the same period in 2009. UNEP executive director Achim Steiner pointed out that, despite the squeeze on budgets, various government and industry players seemed determined to transform the economic crisis into an opportunity for greener growth.

The chief executive of Bloomberg's New Energy Finance unit said at the time that the sector's resilience in the face of financial hardship shows clean energy was not “a bubble created by the late stages of the credit boom”, but instead an investment theme that will lead the way going forward.

Then there's one of the few positive outcomes of the Copenhagen Summit - the pledge by developed nations to provide $10 billion a year, for three years, in climate-related aid to developing countries, increasing to $100 billion annually by 2020.

If financing plans are executed with skill and foresight, it could create burgeoning local industries based on sustainable sources of clean power, create thousands of jobs, and set up Africa as leader in new green economy.

Africa is also in a unique position, as the majority of its population remains without access to electricity. This means investments in clean energy production could enable the continent to bypass the dead-end coal route, and jump straight to renewables as the chief source of electricity generation. Given that Africa is one of the regions set to suffer the worst at the hands of climate change, this comes not a moment too soon.

For centuries, the sun was revered by ancient cultures from the Babylonians to the Aztecs, bringing the light and heat that sustained them. For all our technological advancement, we cannot beat this celestial orb when it comes to pure capacity. And, as the earth bakes in manmade, artificially produced heat, it may be time to return to the primary source, couple it with the right technology, and fight fire with fire.

* Lezette Engelbrecht, ITWeb copy editor and journalist, hopes the next era of energy generation will be ramped up rapidly and widely enough to stave off the worst effects of climate change and provide the impetus to heave the world into its next energy evolution. If Africa finally sees its resources being used sustainably as a result, then so much the better.