The director of the International Energy Agency has said that she believes Africa will bring energy to consumers mainly through renewable energy with the assistance of some natural gas. However, they will probably skip over coal entirely.
40% of African homes are not connected to the electricity grid yet. This presents a groundbreaking opportunity for the government to skip over fossil fuels and move directly to renewable sources to meet these house's needs.
We've already seen this happening on a large scale. Remote African communities and homes not connected to the national grid will build solar panels, wind farms, or small hydro facilities to power their communities themselves. Many homes in Africa can put up a small turbine or a couple solar panels and get electricity at a much cheaper rate than building the grid hundreds of kilometers out to the area.
The fast dropping costs behind renewable energy combined with it's decentralized nature has made it a very enticing option for communities without reliable power. Natural gas is also abundant and cheaply available, so it will likely play a role in the near future as well.
That would be great, its much easier to set up a large amount of small scale solar panel or wind turbine configurations than waiting for a power plant to open up (plus it has the added benefit of keeping the local people in control of it). They should be able to avoid some of the problems that more developed areas have had replacing or repairing systems based on older technology.
Yup, just like they skipped right over landlines and went right to wireless too actually
great