Access to energy is vital for socioeconomic development. Sustainable development goal 7 focuses on achieving “affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030”. Security, equity, and sustainability are essential considerations in addressing energy challenges as the global population increases. However, a trilemma is created when the criteria are considered concurrently. A trilemma is a difficult option from three unfavourable choices. The energy trilemma describes the balance between energy equity, energy security and environmental sustainability in how energy is used and accessed in daily living.
Energy Equity: Energy Equity evaluates universal access to energy based on affordability, availability, and accessibility. Equitable access can be driven by efficient solar and wind energy technologies and increasing access to efficient products.
Energy Security: This addresses the ability to meet current and growing energy demands. It addresses the availability of energy resources and ensures energy systems can respond to sudden fluctuations in demand and supply. Fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas) are limited resources. Energy Security focuses on developing, deploying and promoting renewable sources of energy.
Environmental Sustainability: This aspect of the trilemma focuses on meeting the energy demands of today in a way that does not negatively impact the environment. With the increasingly adverse impacts of climate change, The entire value chain of generation, transmission, distribution and energy utilisation has to be productive and highly efficient.
Energy poverty is one of the strong cases of the global energy trilemma. Energy poverty results from the inability to afford power supply and sometimes zero access to energy, putting energy equity at the weightier end of the balance. The World Energy Trilemma index is a performance ranking of about 127 countries with the three criteria above. According to World Energy Council, the performance ranking helps countries evaluate their performance in these areas and gives room for improvements as the world races to attain universal energy for all.
In 2022, according to the official release by World Energy Council, the World Energy Trilemma Index, the top seven countries in the order in which they appear are Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom, Canada, Austria, France and Norway. The last five in the order they appear are Malawi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Benin and Niger. It is very disheartening that African countries are at the bottom of this list. This places Africa as a priority in the energy crisis and calls for urgency in response to change this narrative.
At COP27 this year, the Affordable Energy Transition Initiative (AJAETI) was launched during the Energy Day events to proffer solutions that will help Africa identify risks and opportunities to break through the energy transition dilemma. In his remarks, the COP27 President, HE Sameh Shoukry, said, “Science is clear: global emissions need to be reduced by half by 2030, reaching net zero by 2050. To achieve this, we need to invest in new sources of energy that are clean, affordable, accessible, sustainable, and reliable”.
According to the reports from COP27, The AJAETI initiative focuses on facilitating technical and policy support to ensure equitable energy transition across Africa. Secondly, This initiative will provide access to clean cooking fuels and technology to about 300 million of the 970 million people who lack access to clean cooking fuel. Finally, the initiative will, in line with the “Africa we want” agenda, drive the increase in the share of renewables for electricity generation across Africa by 25% in 2027. These ambitious targets to solve a global trilemma focusing on the African continent are steps in the right direction. However, implementation is essential to achieving universal energy access across the continent and globally in 2030.