Africa’s Untapped Green Potential

A young investor's guide to greener financing

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Summer in Cape Town, South Africa brings longer days with toasting temperatures turning asphalt into a menace for unsuspecting bare feet. At an average temperature of 19℃, with the high easily reaching 29℃, the solar PV panels across South Africa have collected over 5000 MW (megawatts) of solar irradiance – a growth of 349% since last year June 2022, Eskom reported in November 2023. Amidst the rolling power cuts, South Africans are capitalising on the nation’s good weather and turning to alternative energy supplies as a way to keep the lights on at home.

Although South Africa is one of 54 countries on the African continent, its window of opportunity is indicative of the entire nation's potential to transition into green energy, the 2023 KPMG report suggests.

It's a Green Investor's Game

Africa stands at the brink of exponential growth, driven by a burgeoning population, vast untapped mineral resources, solar and wind capacities exceeding current levels by 1000 and 100 times respectively, and a production surplus of hydrogen energy large enough to supply industrial hubs of the Global North by 2050. Africa is ready to, and will, “play a pivotal role in the transition to decarbonise”, KPMG opens in its Climate Investing Report of 2023. With some of the best solar, wind and green hydrogen potential climate-aligned investors are turning their gaze towards the continent, seeking superior returns while advancing their global climate action goals.

Surging Solar Energy Opportunities

In Sub-Saharan African countries, the installed electricity capacity remains low, with a global horizontal irradiance (GHI) ranging between 5.20 and 6.57 kWh/㎡. Interestingly, this GHI surpasses that of Spain, which measures between 1.48 and 3.56 kWh/㎡. Despite this, Spain boasts an installed electricity capacity more than double that of nations like Mozambique, Nigeria, and Kenya, as highlighted in the KPMG report. This gap between ample solar resources and the lack of sufficient installed capacity has not gone unnoticed by foreign investors.

Mega solar energy projects are underway in countries like Mauritania and Morocco which are capitalising on the ample solar resources of the Sahara in North Africa, Ian Lewis reported in African Business. Further down the continent, South Africa, which holds most of the solar projects in Africa, has provided over 907 MW (megawatts) to over 564,000 homes among the nine largest solar power plants on the continent. This illustrates a promising foundation that has spurred companies like French-based Rgreen Invest and Echosys Invest to take significant action.

Advancing Africa's Mega-Watt Wind Potential

Infrastructure, cost, environment, and conflict are major challenges barring access to Africa’s wind energy potential. The kind of potential that could “satisfy electricity demand 250 times over”, could “close the energy access gap in Africa within twelve months” and could allow 27 African countries to supply the entire continent’s energy demand. Yet, the Global Wind Council estimates that Africa is only using 0.01% of its potential, the 2023 KPMG report stated.

However, several countries in Africa are actively expanding their wind energy potential. Wind power plants like Acwa Power in Egypt, Red Sea Power wind farm in Djibouti and Boujdour wind farm in Morocco aim to significantly reduce their annual carbon emissions by 9%, 250,000 tonnes, and 1.15 million tonnes respectively, as stated in the 2023 KPMG report.

Turning to Africa's Green Hydrogen Potential

Green hydrogen is dependent on already existing renewable energy sources, which Africa has in abundance. Compared to other countries Africa has positioned itself comfortably as a major player in green hydrogen production and exportation, particularly to countries that will need to supplement their green hydrogen demand to meet their climate goals, the KPMG 2023 report states.

In their 2022 study, the European Investment Bank estimated that Africa could see a “production capacity exceeding 50 million tonnes per annum by 2035”. However, they warned of local challenges that investors should be aware of for successful investment returns.

Green Investors Facing Renewable Energy

Political instability, environmental impacts, community engagement and power transmissions are some of the mitigable risks investors should address before reaping the benefits of Africa’s renewable potential. For instance, a major success of the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in Kenya was due to key points of community engagement.

Even more so, many African governments are realising the necessity of foreign investment and are opening their doors to accommodate it. A case in point is South Africa’s governing party the African National Congress (ANC) which is turning to foreign investment and independent power producers to help drive South Africa’s energy generation capacity. Africa’s booming population growth, untapped resources and readiness position itself as a pivotal player in the world’s plan to decarbonise.

Has Wonka foreseen the future?

3D-printed meat, ‘bleeding’ meatless burgers, and meals to solve world hunger are on the menu for 2028.

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Understandably, the weird and wonderful culinary feasts we drooled over from our childhood movies are hard to believe—even if we desperately wanted them to be real. The flying Fizzing Whizzbees in Harry Potter, materializing Turkish delights from Narnia, or the scaly Nuna Turkey Jerky from Star Wars are sadly (cue the tears) not real. But, before we drag our feet back to our non-magical meals, we may be heading into a Willy Wonka-esque future of fantastical meatless burgers that 'bleed', spices that can fill your hunger and burger patties printed in a lab.

Impossible Foods’ ‘Bleeding’ Meatless Burgers

They may call themselves Impossible Foods, yet they are anything but. They're a California-based food company taking on the million-dollar meat industry with one not-so-secret weapon: heme. Heme is an iron-rich molecule essential for oxygen transport in blood, Impossible Foods CEO and Founder wrote in 2018. In a typical burger, heating the meat causes the myoglobin protein, which carries heme, to open up, releasing heme and initiating reactions that generate the distinctive aroma and flavour that make meat so irresistible, Impossible Food’s Chief scientist David Lipman told Wired.com. However, no animals were harmed in the making of this burger.

*Enter the humble soy root*

Impossible Foods discovered that soy leghemoglobin, a plant-based equivalent to myoglobin, offers the same properties as heme in animal meat. However, since it would take a mammoth amount of soy roots to produce enough plant-based heme molecules, Impossible Foods has created a solution: genetically engineered yeast that makes its own heme molecules in very high quantities, Lipman explains to Wired.com. What you're left with are four core ingredients making up the Impossible Foods burger. You’ve got: leghemoglobin for that meaty taste, wheat protein to help with the crumbly texture and potato protein with coconut oil for your meat-like fats.

How Do You Prefer Your Cultivated ‘Meat’?

What if nibbling on a tender meat pie, chewing on a sizzling piece of bacon, or picking at a light pan-fried salmon wouldn't cost you the guilt of hurting the planet? Companies like Eat Just and Finless Foods in California are working hard at making ‘alternative- meat’ commonplace. Future Meat and its fellow cellular agriculture allies ask, ' Are animals necessary to consume protein?’ They reckon that they aren’t thanks to something called cultured meat. Think, agriculture inside a petri dish.

In other words, animal stem cells are fermented in a special food facility. Without the need for wide open spaces and a mass number of animals, cultured meat could use less land and water, emit fewer greenhouse gasses and reduce the pollution created by agriculture. These benefits can even stretch as far as the ocean.

Finless Foods uses similar methods to its red meat neighbours all because of a bioreactor (colloquially known as a cultivator). Once inside the bioreactor, the stem cells are isolated and fed the necessary nutrients needed to grow as they would in their natural animal owner. The cells will then multiply into something you could eat with its own muscle fat and connective tissues.

Taste a Menu Designed to Save the World

Among the many issues we face in today’s world (climate change) Dr Hervé This thinks one of them we can solve is world hunger. Here’s the problem: we can’t transport food quickly enough to targeted communities before the contents spoil. The reason for their spoilage is the water retention in certain foods. It’s because moisture-rich nutrients are a microorganism playground which is the reason for their speedy deterioration, This explained to the New York Times. The solution: we should stop transporting ‘wet’ foods and instead break them down into their important parts, This told the New York Times.

Herve This plans on deconstructing food into its individual textures, flavours and compounds until he’s left with foams, gels and powders of the meal he once had. It’s known as molecular cuisine – a mad food scientist's daydream and a solution to world hunger, according to This. The important thing to remember is molecular cuisine can remove moisture from items such as carrots, apples and other moisture-rich fruits and vegetables. It gives scientists like This the ability to create powders and long-life liquids made up of the basic components of food. You may soon have a spice rack of complicated-sounding food components that, when mixed with their complementary compounds, can produce a satisfying and nutrient-dense meal.