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The microphones went off. The screens went blank. Ministers froze mid-sentence.
For the third time that morning, the lights at Freetown’s new International Conference Center went out during the summit on Africa’s renewable energy future.
It wasn’t a single glitch. The power outage happened again and again — sometimes in the middle of keynote speeches, sometimes just as delegates were pitching billion-dollar investment plans.
The hall would fall silent; gasps, then the glow of mobile phone flashlights filled the room.
It was an irony no one could ignore. The blackout during the Accelerated Partnership for Renewables in Africa (APRA) forum captured, in one moment, the contradiction between ambition and reality: Africa is hosting glossy conferences on clean energy while still struggling to keep the power on.
APRA’s “Mission 300” is bold — a plan to mobilize 300 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity across Africa by 2030. But the numbers tell a harder story.
Last year, the entire continent added just 4.2 GW, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). To hit 300 GW, Africa must multiply that pace by nearly ten times every year for the next five years.
“It’s not charity. It’s investment,” said Dr Kandeh Yumkella, former UN energy envoy and now Sierra Leone’s special adviser on renewables. “Mission 300 is not an aid program. It’s about investors coming to countries that are ready. But we must be honest — many of us are not ready.”
That readiness gap between the political speeches and the power sockets hung heavy over the blackout-stricken conference.
Across Africa, more than 600 million people still live without electricity. The African Development Bank estimates that the continent needs USD 70 billion in annual renewable energy investment to meet its targets. In 2023, it attracted just USD 15 billion — barely 2.3 percent of global clean energy investment.
Even the best-performing countries face bottlenecks. Projects often spend seven to ten years between concept and construction, trapped in feasibility studies and financing delays.In Freetown, ministers admitted that the “project pipeline” often stops at the word pipeline.
Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister, Ministry of Energy, Gloria Magombo, said: “Some of our projects were licensed ten years ago and have still not reached financial close. Others were licensed two years ago and are already in construction. The difference is capacity — the ability to pitch, to structure, to negotiate.”
She blamed “the risk perception of Africa” and “a broken utility system” that scares investors away.
The toughest conversations at APRA were not about solar or hydrogen. They were about utilities — the state-owned power companies that buy and distribute electricity.Across the continent, utilities are deep in debt, politically protected, and technically fragile. Most sell power below cost due to populist price controls. Many fail to collect payments. In Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, non-technical losses — power stolen or unbilled — consume up to 30 percent of generated electricity.
“No investor will fund a project if your off-taker is bankrupt,” said Dr. Senalor Yawlui, High Commissioner of Ghana to Sierra Leone.
Dr. Yumkella echoed the same frustration: “Utilities are the toughest to reform. They are politically sensitive, full of patronage, and resistant to change. But unless we fix them, investors won’t come.”
In Sierra Leone, an investor confronted the government publicly. “You owe me $700,000,” he told journalists. “If the utility doesn’t pay, we’re not investing more.”
That exchange captured the trust deficit that dogs the sector. The problem goes beyond poor management — it’s structural.
Borrowing costs in African energy markets remain punishingly high. One developer told a minister that his bank offers loans at rates that would force him to raise electricity tariffs.“I told him, you can’t raise the tariffs,” Yumkella said later, recounting the exchange. “But that means the project stalls.”
High interest rates, weak currencies, and “high risk” classifications make renewable projects unaffordable for both investors and citizens.
That is why African ministers are demanding new risk guarantees and what they call “green currency” instruments — financing tools that would stabilize local-currency power deals against volatile exchange rates.
Germany and Denmark have begun designing such mechanisms, but none are yet operating at scale.
“Without de-risking, we will keep talking,” said Mr. Antonio Manda, Minister of Minerals and Energy, Mozambique. “Our projects are not failing because they are bad. They fail because nobody wants to take the first risk.”
The blackout in Freetown was not unusual. Sierra Leone’s grid serves only about 36 percent of its population. Yet it hosted a conference selling an energy transition worth billions.
During the outage, delegates joked nervously that the event had “gone off-grid.” But the moment exposed what data already shows: Africa’s renewable ambition is real, but its infrastructure is brittle.
Even with geothermal success stories in Kenya and hydro expansions in Ethiopia, most countries still depend on aging thermal plants, expensive diesel imports, and fragile transmission lines.
Ngozi Beckley, Country Manager, Sierra Leone, Sustainable Energy for All, acknowledged the contradiction:
“Yes, we are ambitious. Our president wants to raise electricity access from 36 percent to 78 percent and clean cooking from 1 percent to 25 percent by 2030. But it takes billions. We’ve mobilised $70 million here, $3 million there — it’s progress, but it’s not transformation.”
Behind every megawatt lies politics.
Energy reform means removing subsidies, automating billing, and sometimes laying off thousands. Ministers know that comes with political risk.
“When you reform utilities, people will resist,” said Yumkella. “Unions will strike. Politicians will panic. The media must back us, or we all die in the dark.”
He was not speaking metaphorically. In hospitals across the continent, doctors rely on generators. In schools, students read by candlelight. In industries, production lines halt with every outage.
Electricity is not just an infrastructure issue — it’s the heartbeat of economic survival.
Mission 300 sounds inspiring. But after Freetown’s blackout, even its champions admit it’s more aspiration than assurance.
As one delegate whispered after power was restored, “If we can’t light our own forum, how will we light a continent?”
The stage lights flickered back on. The speakers resumed. The words hydrogen, transition, partnership filled the hall again.
But the brief darkness had already told the truth — that Africa’s energy story is not about speeches or targets, but about the silence that follows when the lights go out, and whether this time, anyone is willing to fix the system before making the next promise.
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