Africa Left in Dark as $9.7 Billion Obama Power Plan Falls Short

Building a sustainable green economy, anywhere in the world, takes a lot of grunt work.  There is no "quick fix".  We see this again in this story looking at an effort to construct a sufficient electricity system in Africa.  The US, through President Obama, had committed resources to a 9 billion plan to deliver much needed power to their major centers.  Progress, though, has been slow.

Yet, that should not discourage investors or potential users.  Progress is sometimes slow, a leads to b leads, to c, etc, but steady, even laborious, is sometimes good.  If we can create their grid with smart technology and feed it with clean energy, long-term they will have a great asset that will intelligently power their economy.

Energy production is a big part of the business side of green, our prism.  The important thing here is not to destroy their environment as we make way for their industrial growth:



The president’s signature Africa initiative hasn’t panned out

Officials say the project needs more time to show results

President Barack Obama’s signature initiative for Africa -- a $9.7 billion plan to double electricity access in the world’s poorest continent -- has fallen well short of its goals, so far producing less than 5 percent of the new power generation it promised.

Obama announced Power Africa three years ago with an ambitious goal: to add 10,000 megawatts of power and supply electricity to 20 million households within five years. As he prepares to address the U.S.-Africa Business Forum in New York on Wednesday, the project has yielded less than 400 megawatts of new power after running into political and economic difficulties.

“If you look today at the number of megawatts that are actually on the grid directly related to the Power Africa initiative, it is very little,” John Rice, vice chairman of General Electric Co., said in May at the World Economic Forum in Kigali, Rwanda.

Power Africa, he said, “was a well-intentioned effort, with a lot of smart people, a lot of willing participants, financial institutions and yet, for some reason, it couldn’t come together.”

The program’s shortfalls mean that when Obama leaves office, the nation’s first black president and the son of a Kenyan farmer will not be able to claim a legacy-defining endeavor in Africa. By comparison, President George W. Bush’s signature initiative in Africa -- the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR -- provided drugs to fight HIV to more than 2 million people by the time he left office.

No ‘Magic Wand’

General Electric declined to make Rice available for an interview. Power Africa’s leaders say they are redoubling efforts to accelerate progress. U.S. agencies announced $1 billion in new loans and financing on Wednesday for projects in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and elsewhere.

Obama administration officials say Power Africa was never expected to change the continent’s energy landscape overnight. The goal was to persuade the private sector to tackle Africa’s power shortages, not simply provide a government handout, said Andrew Herscowitz, Power Africa coordinator at the United States Agency for International Development. Results will take years, he said.

“You can’t just wave a magic wand and have all the infrastructure appear -- it takes time to build things,’’ he said. “A huge project doesn’t get built overnight. Not in the United States, not in Europe, not in China, not anywhere.’’

Herscowitz said Power Africa is backing projects across the continent, showing that the private sector is responding to U.S. efforts. A burgeoning market for solar panels is cropping up in places like Rwanda and Sierra Leone, and companies have committed more than $40 billion to dozens of Power Africa projects, he said. USAID estimates the initiative will ultimately provide electricity to 60 million households in more than 20 countries.

But many of the successful projects claimed by Power Africa were underway long before the initiative began, and much of the progress touted on paper has yet to materialize in actual electricity.

Nigerian Outages

That’s evident on a visit to the main electronics market in Lagos, Nigeria, where shouting street vendors compete with hundreds of roaring generators that spring to life daily during power outages that last hours.

Even in the nation boasting Africa’s most potent economy, electricity is fleeting, and far too sporadic to keep this sprawling market reliably up and running.

“There was power supply this morning, but hardly did it last for one hour before it went off,’’ said Olajide Opemipo, a logistics manager who works in the market.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s largest concentration of people without power. More than 620 million people in the fast-growing region lack a reliable supply of electricity, according to the International Energy Agency.

Power Africa enjoys some congressional support, suggesting it could survive Obama’s presidency. Representative Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the aim is that the private sector will continue to invest after Obama leaves office. He sponsored legislation, signed by Obama in February, that encourages future administrations to continue investing in Africa’s power sector.

“All of us understand that dealing in Africa in terms of development work is a long process,’’ he said. “You’ve got 600 million people in the dark in Africa without electricity --so it’s going to take time..."