Energy Resources in Africa: Distribution, Opportunities and Challenges

356 Pages·2016·7.67 MB·English

by  Herick Othieno

Herick Othieno · Joseph Awange
Energy
Resources
in Africa
Distribution, Opportunities and
Challenges
Energy Resources in Africa
Herick Othieno Joseph Awange
(cid:129)
Energy Resources in Africa
Distribution, Opportunities and Challenges
123
Herick Othieno JosephAwange
Physics andMaterial Science Department ofSpatial Sciences
MasenoUniversity Curtin University
Maseno Bentley, WA
Kenya Australia
ISBN978-3-319-25185-1 ISBN978-3-319-25187-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-25187-5
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015952028
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2016
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This book is dedicated to our spouses,
Mrs. Beatrice Othieno and Mrs. Naomi
Awange, whose family time was painfully
sacrificed during the long periods
when we were working on the book.
Preface
The writing of this book was spurred by an earlier successful publication of a
similar book by the same authors on “Energy Resources in East Africa”. Africa is
nodoubtacontinentoflargediverseresourcesandtheirmanagementbyindividual
countries is equally diverse as they usually embrace cultural, political and ethnic
interests. These considerations are often influenced by the desire of one group to
have more control of the national resources, and therefore, a management frame-
workisrarelybasedontheinterestofthenationasawhole.Incertaininstances,as
capturedbypresidentObama(US)inhisrecentvisittoKenya,thedesirecanbeso
strongthatvicessuchascorruption,opentheft,employmentofunqualifiedrelatives
and friends are openly practiced at the expense of national development. The end
result is that the basic services to the people are neither adequately provided nor
fairlydistributedandsothedeprivedcitizensbegintofeelalienatedfromtheirown
government system, and the “grand corruption” settles in permanently. This, of
course,isaverypessimisticwayoflookingatthesituationbut,unfortunately,itis
the disease, which in its different forms, has crippled African Economic develop-
ment particularly in the energy provision and infrastructural development sectors.
Energyisknownandrightlyacceptedasthedrivingforceforanydevelopment,and
Africa has a significant share of known world energy resources such as solar, oil,
gas, coal, wind, geothermal, hydropower, and even uranium. However, it remains
the poorest continent in the world mainly due to management culture described
above.ThisbookhasattemptedtoidentifyenergyresourcesinAfricaandhoweach
countryhasusedtheseresourcesforhereconomicdevelopmentandgeneralwelfare
of her people.
The continent has more than fifty independent states, and naturally, it would be
difficulttofullypresenttheenergy situation ineachcountryindetail.Theauthors,
therefore, divided the continent into four main regions and attempted to give an
account of each region. East Africa, which straddles the Equator and lies in the
sub-Saharanregion,isgivenanextensivecoverageasatypicalexampleofsituation
in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It has a whole range of climatic conditions and
vegetation cover that adequately represent the situation in SSA, and therefore, the
vii
viii Preface
discussions on biomass energy issues for East Africa also apply to West and
southern Africa. North Africa and South Africa have their unique aspects that are
presented in their respective chapters. Biomass use as a source of energy and
biomass cooking and heating devices for the rural and peri-urban population has
commonfeaturesacrossAfrica.Thisiswhytheirextensivecoverageinoneregion
is sufficient. It should be noted that challenges and opportunities are not presented
aschapters,butarescatteredoveralltheotherchapters.Thismakesiteasierforthe
readertoidentifythespecificchallengesandopportunitiesthatexistineachcountry
or region. In some instances, overall challenges and opportunities are discussed in
Chaps. 1, 7, and 8, where the discussions are based on the global and African
circumstances ingeneral.Thereareafewcasesinwhichgeographicalinformation
and economic development drivers are presented to assist the readers who are not
familiar with the location of some African countries.
It is important to note that most of the statistics presented in this book, partic-
ularly population figures, proven reserves of various resources and installed power
capacities are changing fairly rapidly in some cases. Some data are not readily
available and so figures referring to populations were mostly estimated using
populationgrowthrates,whilequantitiessuchasnationaloil,gas,andcoalreserves
are based on those quoted by most sources. They may therefore be different from
those quoted by certain sources. Due recognition should also be given to the fact
that these quantities change with time. However, the variation should not be more
than10%forthespecifiedyear.Thereadermayalsonoticeanumberofrepetitions
invarioussectionsandchapters.Theseshouldbeexpectedinabookofthisnature
due to the need for comparative analysis of some information.
TheAfricansolarandwindenergypotentialsarementionedinChap.1inavery
general form. This isso because Africa traverses theequator, which dividesit into
twoalmostequalpartssothatsolarradiationpatternsinbothnorthernandsouthern
parts are relatively similar. It is also well known that wind speeds are suitable for
thedevelopmentofwindpowergenerationfacilitiesinAfrica andsothetreatment
inChap.1isconsideredsufficient.However,insomecases,thelevelsofwindand
solar energy distributions are given for specific countries. Finally, some basic
principles of renewable energy conversion technologies are also given in Chap. 6.
Herick Othieno
Maseno University, Kenya
Joseph Awange
Curtin University, Australia
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Kyoto University, Japan
Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil
Acknowledgments
Africa is a large continent of diverse energy resources and synthesising the
informationintoasinglebooknaturallyrequiredtheinvolvementofmanyplayers.
Inordertocollectcredibleinformation,weneededtoengagetheservicesofenergy
experts in different parts of Africa. For this reason, we divided Africa into four
broadregionsdependingontheiruniqueenergyendowments:northernAfricawith
oil,southernAfricawithcoal,andsub-SaharanAfrica(easternandwesternregions)
withbiomass.MuchoftheinformationonsouthernAfrica(Chap.3)wasprovided
by Dr. Josephine Musango of Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Studies, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, while the material for Chap. 5
(northern Africa) was contributed by Dr. Abdallah Khellaf of Centre de
Développement des Energies Renouvelables (CDER) in Algeria. Our deep appre-
ciation goes to Dr. Khellaf who provided vital materials for the Chapter on North
Africa and therefore deserves special credit for this contribution. We sincerely
thankthembutalsowishtostatethat,astheauthors,wetakefullresponsibilityfor
the authenticity of the information given in this book. We wish also to thank our
employers: Maseno University (Kenya) and Curtin University (Australia) for the
conducive working environment given to us.
The first author wishes to express his sincere gratitude to the British-Nigerian
Education Trust (BNET)/Commonwealth Fellowship for providing financial sup-
portthatenabledhimfinalisethecontentsofthebook.Thethreemonthsfellowship
was spent at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and, in this regard, the author
acknowledges the good reception and support provided by the Department of
Physics and the University of Ibadan in general. Furthermore, he wishes to thank
TIGeR (The Institute forGeoscienceResearch)forfundinghis5weeksstay atthe
DepartmentofSpatialSciences(CurtinUniversity),theperiodwhichthebookwas
completed. He is grateful to his host Prof. Joseph Awange (second co-author) and
theentirestaffofSpatialSciencesforthewarmwelcome.Onamorepersonalnote,
the first author acknowledges the role of his colleagues in the Department of
Physics and Materials Science at Maseno University for accepting to take more
teaching loads, while he was away working on the book.
ix
x Acknowledgments
The second author also wishes to express his sincere thanks to Prof. B. Heck
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany) for hosting him during the
period of his Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (June–September 2015), Prof.
Y.Fukuda(KyotoUniversity,Japan)forhostinghimduringtheperiodofhisJapan
Society of Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship (October–November 2015),
and Prof. R. Goncalves of Federal University of Pernambuco (Brazil) for hosting
him during his Science Without Boarder (December 2015–March 2016). Parts
of this book were written during these periods. He is also grateful to
Prof. B. Veenendaal (Head of Department, Spatial Sciences, Curtin University,
Australia) for the support and motivation that enabled the preparation of this edi-
tion. He also wishes to acknowledge the support of Alexander von Humboldt that
facilitated his stay at KIT, JSPS that supported his stay at Kyoto University, and
CapesforsupportinghisstayinBrazil.Toall,hesays,“ahsantesana”(Swahilifor
thank you very much). Special thanks go to our families, namely Mrs. Beatrice
Othieno, children Judith, Walter and Nicholas & Dawn Othieno; Mrs. Naomi
Awange, Lucy Awange and Ruth Awange who had to contend with our long
periodsofabsencefromhome.Therewereanumberofinstitutionsandindividuals
whoassistedusinonewayortheother,butitisnotpossibletomentionallofthem
individuallyinthislimitedspace.Weapologiseforthisbutgratefullyacknowledge
their valuable support and contributions. This is a TiGER Publication No. 632.
Contents
1 Global Energy Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Introductory Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Energy and Matter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Global Energy Situation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.1 Global Energy Demand and Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.2 Bio-fuel Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4 The African Energy Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.4.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.5 African Energy Facts at a Glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.6 African Energy Management Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.7 Conclusion Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2 Energy Resources in East Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.1 Introductory Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.2 Background Facts of East Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.2.1 Energy Mix Perspectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.2 Household Energy Application and Management . . . . . . 48
2.2.3 Commercial Energy Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.2.4 Energy Choice Factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.2.5 Policy Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.3 Energy Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.3.1 Solar and Wind Energies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.3.2 Hydropower. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.3.3 Geothermal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.3.4 Coal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
2.3.5 Natural Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
2.3.6 Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
2.3.7 Thermal Generators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
xi