Delegates to the 57th edition of the Association of Power Utilities in Africa (Apua) annual meeting have urged African countries to find local solutions to their energy problems.
Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting in Lilongwe on Thursday, Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola said African countries should explore local solutions to revamp their energy sectors.
He urged local leaders to use regional blocs such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa to negotiate better terms with multilateral institutions on the transition to cleaner sources of energy such as solar and wind, which are relatively more expensive than heavy emitters such as coal.
Said Matola: “Within those blocs, we can use them to negotiate our energy transition better. We can leverage the new technological innovations in other renewable technologies to boost our energy supply. If we are using clean sources, we can beat the deadline.
“We can also renegotiate the deadlines. We can use the finance from the African Development Bank while we negotiate with the other multilateral institutions and industrialised countries to remove the red tape and conditionalities attached to their finances so that we can be where they are.”
In an interview, Energy Generation Company chief executive officer William Liabunya said Africa can benefit by exploring alternatives to complement renewable energy during the transition period.
He said: “We need to be more open-minded about how we approach the transition. Most of the industrialised countries developed using coal.
“Even now, some countries [like Britain and Germany] use coal in emergency situations. We need cheaper energy to complement these renewable technologies.”
The week-long annual summit, which ended on Friday brought together chief executives and technocrats from power utilities across Africa to provide direction on the strategic leadership and the governance of the power sector.
Source: The Nation_Monday, June 12, 2023_by Eric Mtemang’ombe