Despite an early start in countries that include South Africa (2002), Kenya (2009), Egypt (1993), and Morocco (2000) which began to install and operate wind farms several decades ago, the development of wind energy in Africa in general has been held back by many factors and today seriously lags that of solar PV which is perceived by government energy ministries, national utilities and power system planners as cheap, quick and relatively simple to deploy, while fossil fuel generation sources such as natural gas continue to make inroads in some markets, and coal and hydroelectric power remain a large part of the energy mix. This is despite the fact that new wind resource studies indicate that the resource available is far greater than had been estimated previously. A new study from the IFC, the private sector arm 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. 

Still, there is a massive investment appetite for wind energy both from the private sector and multilateral financial institutions (MFIs). However, there is a lack of both investable projects, and a lack of seed capital needed for early stage developers to get projects off the ground and to reach the stage where a wind project is considered bankable. These projects often have significant potential to create a ‘demonstration effect,’ crucial to addressing key barriers and to help develop  lasting and sustainable markets for wind energy development in Africa. 

Wind clearly has a much bigger role to play in Africa’s energy transition than is currently being acknowledged, because of its affordability, complementarity and scalability compared to other energy sources and the economic benefits it can bring to countries through the creation of local industry. Wind energy is already cost-competitive across the globe, and according to IRENA’s 2030 outlook, the average levelised cost of energy (“LCOE”) of onshore wind is expected to continue declining by 25% from 2018 levels. As a large utility-scale technology, wind energy is capable of supplying a significant portion of a country’s energy mix and is also a natural complement to other leading forms of clean energy in Africa, such as hydropower and solar.