Sub-Saharan Africa Electricity Supply Inadequacy: Implications

Abstract

Africa has many electricity supply problems with major causes being natural causes (drought), oil price shock, system disruption by conflict, and low investment in electricity generation. To solve the problem, many countries adopted several reforms. However, the reforms failed to bring solutions. Electricity sector privatisation has received great criticism. Individual firms and households resorted to own private power generation due to electricity supply inadequacy from the public grid supply, as is the feature of many African countries. This paper focuses on sub-Saran Africa’s electricity supply inadequacy. It provides the economic implications of power outages.

Keywords: Electricity outage, electricity supply interruption, private electricity supply, power sector reforms.