Investment growth in African renewables

摘要

Investment in renewable power in Africa is set to grow from the 2011 total of $3.6bn in 2010 to $57bn by 2020, a 1,583 per cent increase in nine years, ALTHOUGH AFRICA HAS vast fossil and renewable energy sources, only 20 per cent of its population has direct access to electricity and in some rural areas, four out of five people are completely without power. According to the UN, over 600mn Africans currently do not have access to electric power. A depressing 70 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa's population is living without access to clean and safe energy for their basic needs such as cooking, lighting and heating, making energy poverty among the most urgent issues facing Africa. Worldwide, more than 1.4bn people worldwide have no access to electricity, and one billion more only have intermittent access.