COMESA has been pivotal in fostering economic integration and development across our Member States. Energy, as the lifeblood of our economies and societies, is undeniably central to this progress. Harmonizing our regulatory frameworks is therefore not just an option, but an imperative.
By aligning our approaches, Africa can unlock the full potential of regional energy trade, enhance energy security, and ultimately improve the lives of our citizens.
Africa, a continent blessed with abundant energy resources, paradoxically faces a severe energy crisis. Despite significant progress, the pace of electrification is far from adequate to meet the growing demands of our rapidly expanding populations. The stark reality is that 75% of the world’s population without access to electricity resides in Africa.
The Eastern and Southern Africa region is not immune to this challenge. The gap between energy supply and demand continues to widen, affecting industries, businesses, and households alike. A staggering 365 million people in the region lack access to electricity, and 558 million lack access to clean cooking.
Despite hosting 18% of the world’s population, Africa consumes less than 6% of global energy. Excluding South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa’s per capita energy consumption stands at just 180 kilowatt-hours (kWh), compared to 6,500 in Europe and 13,000 kWh in the United States.
Without significant intervention, the region’s energy supply will not keep pace with rising demand driven by urbanization, economic growth, and population expansion. According to the World Bank, the pace of electrification in the region needs to triple to achieve universal electricity access by 2030. Otherwise, there will still be more than 300 million people without electricity in the COMESA region by that time.
In Ethiopia, the national grid remains concentrated in major population centers, limiting access to electricity for the vast majority of our rural population. Expanding electricity access to rural areas, townships, and commercial centers is a long-term necessity and essential for balanced socio-economic growth at the national and regional levels.
The limited power supply also significantly impacts economic and industrial development in our region. It raises the cost of doing business and diminishes the ability to attract new investments.
By harnessing our collective expertise and political will, the region can accelerate electrification, attract investment, and build a sustainable energy future for all. As we (Africans) embark on this journey, let us be guided by cooperation, a shared vision, and a commitment to excellence.
Holding the aforesaid mission, the technical validation workshop on Framework and Maiden Reports on Harmonized Comparison of Electricity Tariffs and Cost Reflectivity Assessment of power utilities in the COMESA Region was held recently in Addis Ababa.
The workshop is dealing with a component of a broader assignment which also involves Elaboration of Regional Electricity Regulatory Principles (RERP), Regulatory and Utility Key Performance Indicators (UKPI) for COMESA, including an Information Management System (IMS) for REARESA.
As participants witnessed, the workshop was quite an important undertaking to foster optimal development of electricity generation resources in the region along with interconnectivity and multilateral electricity trade through progressive development of competitive electricity market.
The project is funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) to REARESA of COMESA for efficient coordination of the various activities aimed at realization of the project objectives. Realization of the ultimate objective of this project is contributed a great deal to collective effort to deepen regional power system integration in the continent.
Deepening regional power system integration in the region yet requires deployment of many more interconnection lines including concerted actions to allow for expansion of multilateral power trade and seamless operation of the regional grid formed through interconnection of the national power grids.
In line with that, the GS is overseeing implementation of various activities aimed at advancing development of new interconnection projects, like Uganda-Tanzania, Ethiopia-Somalia, ensuring reliable & secure operation of the interconnected regional power system, fostering multilateral power trade through operationalization of the EAPP Day Ahead market, and adoption of Framework Bilateral Trade Agreements, and enhancing EAPP’s institutional capacity on integrated resource planning to lay the basis for development of a Regional Power Master Plan with own resources
The project is a regional initiative designed to enhance the sustainability of the electricity sector of the region through effective, uniform, transparent and enforceable regulatory frameworks that set out clear principles, rules, processes, and standards for the region.
COMESA is also collaborating with the World Bank to increase energy access (100 million people) and support the deployment of renewable energy. I wish to indicate that COMESA and the World Bank are currently implementing two programmes, one of the them is the Regional Infrastructure Finance Facility (RIFF), whose main objective is to expand long-term finance to private firms in selected infrastructure sectors in Eastern and Southern Africa, through Trade and Development Bank, which is a COMESA institution, with a component which is a grant facility implemented by COMESA focusing on Capacity Building and Technical Assistance to COMESA Secretariat (US$ 10 million).
The other programme is the Accelerating Sustainable and Clean Energy Transformation in Eastern and Southern Africa Multi-Phase Programmatic Approach (ASCENT MPA), which intends to align the comparative advantage of all parts of the World Bank (IDA, IFC, MIGA) and build on the IDA financing envelope of US$5 billion to leverage US$10 billion from public and private financing through strategic partnerships. The programme has three pillars. Pillar 1 is the COMESA Platform which is a $US 50million facility.
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
BY GIRMACHEW GASHAW
The Ethiopian Herald September 29/2024
