Conferences & Seminars
Look back: COP 27 – Green hydrogen – what’s in it for Africa?
08 November | 1200 GMT | 1400 EET
Our Vision
The African continent has abundant renewable energy sources and has some of the fastest growing economies. Wind energy has the potential to play an important role in powering Africa’s growth. This includes to create jobs and to build up an industrial sector in Africa. Markets such as South Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya are increasing the share of wind energy. More markets on the African continent are making good progress towards more wind energy in their power mix, as wind energy offers a sustainable and cost-competitive solutions to support the economic growth.
GWEC’s Africa Task Force seeks to build regional cooperation with special focus on the Sub-Saharan African markets. This includes cooperation among governments and market participants. The Africa Task Force will communicate about growth potential and growth outlook towards media stakeholders.
Current Projects
- Providing input towards other institutional stakeholders on potential for wind in African markets.
- The Africa Handbook: A lobbying tool to ensure fact-based and insightful engagement with governmental stakeholders. The handbook is based on input from the task force members and thus represents the industry's experience and knowledge. Download it here.
- Continuous events, webcasts and seminars to promote African wind markets, inform the sector and share best practices
According to the IEA, only 43% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to electricity, which is a major obstacle for economic growth, and social inclusion Growing populations, urbanisation rates and power demand expected in the African Continent will put an even further strain on already struggling energy systems. Wind energy represents one of the most cost efficient, carbon free, investable, solutions for Africa’s power challenge. It is quick to install and scale and is a catalyst for large scale foreign direct investment and industrialisation. If we are to reach the Sustainable Development Goal 7 and ensure that everyone has access to affordable and clean energy, it is essential that we create policies and markets that can accelerate the development of more wind energy on the Continent. We hope that this handbook will provide a useful, step by step guide for policy makers and stakeholders who wish to take advantage of the opportunity wind energy represents for African countries
The Handbook collects the experience that members of GWEC's Africa Task Force, composed of global leaders in the wind industry, have gained in the wind value chain from other mature and emerging markets in order to inform and enable policy makers to establish the appropriate frameworks for fostering wind energy growth in the African continent. It is a dynamic instrument that will constantly be fed with state of art contributions from key stakeholders to tackle any new challenges and opportunities that will arise as the market develops. We are sure that this Handbook will provide invaluable guidance to boost the activity in the African wind sector in the near future.
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Africa Task Force Members
Latest News & Resources
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Africa is only tapping into 0.01% of its wind power potential
According to the latest data released by GWEC Market Intelligence, the global offshore wind industry had its second-best year ever in 2020 installing over 6 GW of new capacity, keeping growth on track despite the impacts of COVID-19 felt in other energy sectors. This growth was driven by a record year in China, which lead the world in new annual offshore wind capacity for the third year in a row, and installed over half of the new offshore wind capacity globally last year.
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Topical Reports
Exploring Africa’s Untapped Wind Potential
A new study for IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, shows that continental Africa possesses a stunning onshore wind potential of almost 180,000 Terawatt hours (TWh) per annum, enough to satisfy the entire continent’s electricity demands 250 times over. The analysis, carried out by Everoze, finds that 27 countries in Africa have enough wind potential on their own to satisfy the entire continental electricity demand—estimated at 700 TWh annually .
Winds of change are blowing in Africa
The African continent is set for growth, the population is expected to grow by 1.4% each year until 2030. GDP is expected to grow by 4%. This development is demanding huge investments in infrastructure including the energy markets to keep up with the growth, access to electricity being one of the main challenges African citizens consider to encompass and unlock their growth path. African governments have acknowledged that growth can only be supported through sustainable solutions, which means an obvious opportunity for wind energy. Offering a cost-competitive solution, wind energy has the potential to drive not only the electrification level in Africa (currently only 43% of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to electricity according to the World Energy Outlook 2018 from IEA), but to also support the economic growth and development of African markets.
Africa Wind Energy Handbook Policy Frameworks
Back to Handbook Political Framework When increasing the share of wind and renewable energy in a market, design of the policy framework is one of the most essential topics. In general, the purpose of such a framework is to create transparency and signal firm commitment to wind energy over a long period of time. A
Webcast on Wind: Market Update and Outlook in Africa and Middle East
14 February 2020 I 11:00-12:00 CET
