Mini-grids vs national grids in Africa: are they complementary solutions or structural compromises? An ETA explainer on access, investment and industrial growth.
There is a phrase that has followed Africa through almost every global climate forum in recent years: “clean energy for people and planet.” And it sounds inclusive, moral and hard to argue against....
I grew up learning how to adapt to electricity failure. You learn early what time power usually goes out, you know when to charge phones, when to pump water, and when to run appliances. You learn the...
“Only 14% of committed mini-grid funding has actually been disbursed.” That figure should stop every energy conversation in its tracks. I have spent years travelling through African communities where...
I grew up counting nights by how dark they felt. In our part of Nigeria, as in most parts of Africa, darkness was not just the absence of light; it was a condition that shaped behaviour. When the sun...
There is a sound I remember from my childhood, not the noise of generators or the crackle of candles, but the soft murmur of neighbours talking in the dark. Entire evenings lit only by moonlight or...
There is a sentence repeated in nearly every African energy policy document: “universal access by 2030.” It is optimistic, visionary and mathematically impossible. With just five years to go, Africa...
When I think about the childhoods many African children are living today, I am transported back to my own: a small house, a kerosene lantern that flickered more than it shone, and the low, constant...
Some crises announce themselves loudly, while others unfold quietly, suffocating people long before the world names them. Africa’s energy crisis belongs to the latter. It is spoken of in terms of...
On the morning the G20 released its South Africa Declaration, a senior official in Abuja joked quietly to a colleague: “Let me guess, they want us to be green, but not too green; use gas, but not too...
When negotiators at COP30 announced new climate-finance commitments in Belém, my mind went to the children I met earlier this year in a village outside Makurdi, Nigeria, six boys and girls bent over...
On the outskirts of a village in northern Kenya, the sun sets over a newly commissioned solar farm and a dozen new battery storage containers. Contractors toast the completion: “This is Africa’s...