Analysis of Infrastructure for Renewable Power in Eastern and Southern Africa

The Africa Clean Energy Corridor initiative aims to transform the continent’s energy mix by promoting the development of clean, indigenous, cost-effective renewable power options. This report examines the evolving infrastructure of Eastern and Southern Africa for the generation and transmission of electricity, highlighting challenges and opportunities for the rapid scale-up of renewable energy. According to the authors, developing regional grid interconnections will be crucial to enable the countries of the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) and the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) to make more use of their abundant renewable energy resources. Current projects would create an interconnected grid for the EAPP and link still-unconnected SAPP members. New transmission lines should also relieve congestion on the SAPP grid, which limits trading on the competitive day-ahead market, according to the authors.