It will take $25 billion a year over the next decade to ensure that the entire African continent has access to electricity, the equivalent of the amount needed to build a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal every year, estimates the International Energy Agency (IEA).

"The immediate and absolute priority for Africa and the international community is to bring modern, affordable energy to all Africans. It is morally unacceptable that the ongoing injustice of energy poverty in Africa is not being addressed when it is so clearly within our capabilities," criticizes IEA Director General Faith Birol in a statement.

In the report "Africa Energy Outlook 2022", released this Monday, it is reported that about 25 million Africans have been without electricity since the start of the pandemic, increasing to 600 million the total number of people on that continent in the same situation. Compared to 2019, "4% more Africans are living without electricity," Fatih Birol told the France-Presse news agency. "And when I look ahead to 2022, with high energy prices and the economic burden this means for African countries, I see little reason to be optimistic," he added.

However, there are opportunities, as Africa has 60% of the world's solar resources, but has only 1% of photovoltaic installations. According to the IEA, in addition to being the cheapest source of energy in many parts of the continent, solar energy will outperform all other sources across the continent by 2030. Renewable energy - including wind, geothermal and that generated in dams - should make up 80% of installed electricity capacity in the next decade, for both energy and climate purposes, the IEA argued.

"The global clean energy transition is a new promise for economic and social development in Africa," reads the document, also referring to the importance of betting on minerals, green hydrogen, but also natural gas. So far, more than 5 billion cubic meters of gas have been discovered on the continent, but have not yet been authorized for exploitation.

But to harness this full potential will require "doubling investment," Birol said. Currently, "Africa receives only 7% of the green energy funding made available by advanced economies to developing countries," he lamented.

"Rising international ambitions to reduce emissions are helping to set a new course for the global energy sector at a time when clean technology costs are receding and global investment patterns are changing. African countries are poised to benefit from these trends and attract increasing flows of climate finance," the paper stresses.