Washington, DC
ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Good morning, everyone. This is a very, very exciting event to be a part of. Really grateful to Simon [Gosling] and everyone at EnergyNet for bringing us together today for what is really a very important gathering. Thanks as well to Power Africa's Acting Coordinator, David Thompson, who has done an absolutely splendid job. We are also excited for our new coordinator, Richard Nelson, who will take the helm this April – which now is next month.
I want to start by humanizing this discussion a little bit and telling you about a man named Abraham Vahn. Abraham is a fisherman in Liberia who often had to fish at night, and fish at night because fish are closer to the surface and easier to catch, and they'll still be fresh to sell at the market in the morning. With only a flashlight though, it was difficult for the bigger boats to see him. They would often snag his nets. They would ruin those nets and sometimes his catch. And sometimes they even came close to running him over entirely.
Then, a company called the Liberia Energy Network worked with Power Africa to make solar powered fishing lights, as well as communal cold storage available for fishermen like Abraham, at an affordable price. Now, Abraham and his fellow fishermen can safely operate their boats, preserve their catch for longer, and ultimately earn higher incomes. Abraham says, “it's life-saving for us on the sea.”
Since President Obama founded Power Africa in 2013 in order to help end energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, the initiative, in partnership with so many of you here today, has helped more than 200 million users gain access to more reliable electricity. Just think, not only of the 200 million individuals in that, but the billions of ways that each of those lives have been changed. Whether it's a doctor who can operate in a fully lit room, knowing that they can rely on the power for vital equipment, someone who has no longer got to spend as many hours gathering firewood as it takes to cook a meal, or a kid who can keep doing his or her homework after the sun sets.
While Power Africa has grown quickly, it is fair to say as well, so has Africa's population. In fact, during the decade that Power Africa brought new or improved power to 200 million people, the population has grown by roughly the same amount – from just under a billion people in 2013 to 1.2 billion people today. In two decades, as you all know, the population will have grown to nearly 2 billion. That is a challenge for us all.
So if we are truly to end energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, we are going to have to increase the pace and volume of investment. And we can do so by doubling down on the strategies that we have honed over the past decade of experience with Power Africa. Those are driving innovation into affordable, clean energy solutions, building more open and transparent operating environments, and connecting regional energy markets to make energy more consistent and affordable for all. I'm going to talk through each of these three elements in turn.
First, spurring off-grid innovation. In the early days of Power Africa, if you've told people soon nearly every new power project in the developing world would come from renewable energy, many would have laughed you out of the room. And I'm sure some of you were, in fact, laughed out of many rooms when you made this prediction. But over the past ten years, we have worked hard, here in the U.S. and beyond, to incentivize innovation, to develop new technologies, drive down costs, and offer affordable financing options for clean energy. These efforts have been massively successful. In the developing world in 2022, fully 80 percent of all new energy capacity added was from renewable sources, because it is now one of the most affordable ways for countries to deliver power at scale.
But our work to drive essential innovations is not over, obviously. There is still an enormous world of opportunity to develop solutions that work for the hardest to reach places. Like OffGridBox, a company that produces integrated solar power and water filtration systems that can get clean water and power to thousands, all from one easily constructed, six by six shipping container. And we need to build more incentives, of course, for companies to innovate with these more remote, low resource settings in mind.
Recently, Power Africa invested $2 million into Acumen's Hardest-to-Reach Fund, a U.S. nonprofit impact investor. Acumen, as you all know, is offering innovative blended finance options to off-grid solar companies to help them to enter the highest risk markets like Chad, Niger, or latest member of the EAC, Somalia.
Acumen's investments will help 72 million customers access solar energy in the least developed and most climate vulnerable countries in sub-Saharan Africa. I hope the philanthropic partners and other donors who are here today will join us in contributing to catalytic partnerships, like the Hardest-to-Reach fund. And we want to hear, we need to hear as well from private sector partners about how we can best support you as you develop more of this exciting new technology in the off-grid space – whether that is working with government partners so they don't unduly tax renewable energy imports, or de-risking capital that can help investors enter new sectors or regions.
Second, creating more open and transparent operating environments. Better, more affordable solutions only matter when energy markets are open and transparent enough that the best solution can win. And too often energy deals in sub-Saharan Africa – and I must be clear, well beyond – have been negotiated bilaterally, behind closed doors, with a single company providing a one stop shop for infrastructure analysis, planning, and construction, and no chance for other companies to offer cheaper or better ways to meet the need.
So Power Africa has worked closely with our country partners to help governments adopt competitive procurement processes to help give companies the tools they need, as well to navigate those processes. For instance, a few years ago, we worked with the Government of Malawi and our partners at the Millennium Challenge Corporation to help Malawi launch their first ever competitive tender for solar power. They received a number of competitive bids and ultimately selected a company called JCM Power to build a 20 megawatt solar plant big enough to deliver clean energy to 20,000 households. JCM Power then worked with Power Africa to add a battery storage system to the project so it could deliver more consistent and affordable energy to customers, helping it become the first ever utility scale plant in the region to include a battery energy storage system.
To our government partners here today that haven't yet developed these competitive procurement processes, Power Africa is eager to work with you to make that happen. And to the companies here today, Power Africa has resources to help you navigate these procurement processes.
In 2022, we partnered with Prosper Africa to launch the U.S. Africa Clean Tech Energy Network, which can help companies with a range of services, from conducting preliminary entry assessments, to helping you navigate those regulatory environments, and identify local partners like contractors and distributors. I invite you to connect with us.
Third, and finally, integrating regional energy markets. The past ten years have shown us that one of our most powerful tools for delivering consistent and affordable energy access is integrating those regional power grids. This is especially important as sub-Saharan Africa urbanizes. Two-thirds of the rapid population growth we will see in the region over the next few decades will, of course, be absorbed by cities. These high-density urban populations strain power grids that are increasingly powered by renewable energy, whose production is of course variable by nature. But connecting power grids, getting grids in different countries, running on the same voltage and frequency, with infrastructure in place to send power across borders, allows countries generating surplus energy to export it to a neighboring country where needs are high.
So Power Africa is helping to expand power pools across the continent. Last July, we worked with 12 West African countries to help synchronize their disparate national grids into one integrated system. This improved regional integration will make the electricity supply cheaper and more reliable to nearly 200 million people, while significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions. People will be able to turn on the lights even when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn’t blowing, without having to fall back on dirtier, more expensive backup generators like inefficient diesel gensets.
But while there is a massive payoff over the long-term, we must reckon with the fact that integrating energy markets requires significant upfront investments to build networks of transmission lines. Historically, this power transmission infrastructure tends to be state owned but expanding it takes capital that most of our government partners, especially those now saddled with significant debt burdens, don't have readily available. When countries permit private sector investment in this transmission infrastructure, then companies can help fill in the gap and drive investment on the scale that is needed.
The team at Power Africa, again, is eager to work with more governments to help establish the regulatory and legal frameworks to permit responsible – that's key – responsible private investment in power transmission. And we are keen to work with more companies to identify and help develop investable projects.
In sum, I want to urge you all to stop by the Massachusetts Room upstairs to connect with our team. We will also be doing a number of roadshows and other promotional events across the United States to share what we are doing with the U.S. private sector.
A decade into Power Africa, we have proven that powering communities at scale doesn't have to come at the cost of polluting the planet. We have seen how extending clean, reliable, affordable power can transform hundreds of millions of lives, and we have honed the tools we need to accelerate even faster progress going forward.
As we look ahead to the next decade, let us build on these lessons and others that you bring to this conversation and work together to end energy poverty once and for all. Thank you so much.
