Energy in Africa is characterised by low per-capita consumption and limited access to modern energy services, reflecting both infrastructural and socio-economic challenges across the continent. As of 2023, Africa accounted for just 5.5% of global total final energy consumption, with per-capita energy use more than three times lower than the global average. The energy mix is dominated by biofuels and waste, which make up 43% of total final consumption, primarily for household cooking and heating, followed by oil products at 33%, electricity at 11%, natural gas at 9%, and coal at 4%.
Electricity access remains a major challenge, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 450 million rural residents lack reliable electricity, and grid coverage is often inconsistent. Clean cooking solutions are similarly underdeveloped, leaving over 900 million people reliant on polluting fuels such as firewood, charcoal, and agricultural residues, which disproportionately affect women and children. Transport energy is dominated by oil products, reflecting low motorisation rates and limited adoption of electric mobility, although countries such as Ethiopia, Morocco, and Egypt have begun adopting policies to reduce fossil fuel dependency.
Africa possesses some of the world's most abundant energy resources, including oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass, much of which remains underutilised. While fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas continue to dominate energy production and electricity generation in Africa, renewable sources are increasingly expanding across the continent. Hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, and modern biomass are growing in capacity, though their deployment remains uneven and limited compared to the continent's vast potential. Hydropower is the largest non-combustible renewable source, while solar energy offers immense potential due to high irradiation levels, particularly in the Sahara and Sahel.
There are regional differences: North Africa is dominated by oil and gas production, Southern Africa by coal and hydropower, East Africa by hydropower and geothermal, and West and Central Africa face major electrification gaps despite hydroelectric potential.
Expanding renewable energy deployment, strengthening grid and off-grid systems, and mobilising investment are central to improving energy access and supporting sustainable development. Energy development is closely linked to human well-being, influencing education, healthcare, economic productivity and gender equity, and is considered critical to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 of affordable, reliable, and clean energy for all.
Energy consumption
Energy consumption on the African continent is characterised by very low per-capita energy use compared with the global average, reflecting limited access to modern energy services in many of its 54 countries. In 2023 total final consumption (TFC) in Africa (the energy delivered via different energy carriers for end-uses such as gasoline for driving a petrol car, electricity for lighting and other appliances, or natural gas for cooking) stood at 5.5% of the global total final energy consumption. Per-capita final energy consumption is more than three times smaller than the global average.
As of 2023, final energy consumption was dominated by biofuels and waste (largely biomass combustion of wood, animal waste and traditional charcoal), which represented 43% of the total (mostly used for cooking and heating in the residential sector). Oil products hold second place with 33%, mostly fuels used in the transportation sector. Electricity represented only 11% as nearly half of the population (about 600 million people on the continent) still do not have access to electricity.
Additional data Total final consumption of energy in Africa by source (2000-2023), PJYearCoalCrude & NGLsOil productsNatural gasRenewables & wasteElectricityTotal2000798137346176 4141 30112865200587834 4831 0667 3021 65615388201075725 7051 1888 0321 95917644201580906 7131 5398 7382 297200962020811576 6941 8049 4992 473213372023880637 8012 02210 1782 65923603 Per-capita total final consumption of energy (2000-2023)YearAfrica population (million)Africa TFC per capita (GJ/person)World population (billion)World TFC per capita (GJ/person)200083015.56.1747.0200593416.56.5448.62010104816.86.9250.92015119316.87.3551.62020134115.97.7951.82023148115.97.7953.0 Structure of total final energy consumption (TFC) in 2023Energy sourceAfrica (PJ)Africa (% of total)World (PJ)World (% of total)Africa (% of world)Renewables & waste10 17843.142 2379.824.1Oil products7 80133.1172 28140.14.5Electricity2 65911.390 90521.22.9Natural gas2 0228.670 32916.42.9Coal8803.736 9468.62.4Crude & NGLs630.33030.120.9Heat00.016 1083.80.0Total23 603100429 0351005.5
Historical trends
Final energy consumption in Africa has increased substantially, nearly doubling in just over two decades between 2000 and 2023. However, energy consumption growth has largely risen from a low point and in line with population growth and per capita it has remained largely flat: up just 3% in 2023 compared to 2000, while global consumption per capita increased by 10% over the same period.
The composition of energy use has shifted only gradually. The share of biofuels and waste declined from around 50% of total final consumption in 2000 to 43% in 2023, reflecting a slow reduction in reliance on traditional biomass. Oil products increased slightly as a share of total consumption (from about 29% to 33%). Natural gas more than tripled in absolute terms and increased its share from roughly 5% to 9%, albeit from a low base. Electricity consumption more than doubled in absolute terms but its share rose only modestly, from around 10% to 11% of total final consumption. Coal's share declined over the period, remaining a small component of final energy use.
Access to energy sources
Electricity access In the 1970s the electrical industry in Africa was facing an economic paradox where raising prices would prohibit access to their services, but the roll out of additional infrastructure to drive prices down and increase access needed additional capital that the industry could not afford. Overall rates of access to electricity in Africa have held constant from the 1980s to the early 2000s, while the rest of the world saw electrical grid distribution increase by 20%. Sub-Saharan Africa was the only region in the world where per-capita access rates are falling during that period.
Access to electricity has remained a major challenge across many African countries today. Some Northern African countries such as Algeria, Morocco and Egypt, as well as other African countries like Ghana, Gabon, and South Africa have made progress in tackling the issue. However, progress has remained limited across Central Africa and the Sahel regions. Sub-Saharan Africa has an average electrification rate of 53% as of 2023, up from 33% in 2010, but still well below the global average of 92% in 2023 and the number of people without access to electricity has remained almost unchanged (from 566 million in 2010 to 565 million in 2023).
In 2023, 35 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa gained electricity access, but with a population growth of 30 million, the net reduction in the access gap was only 5 million (from 570 million to 565 million). This region now accounts for 85% of the global population without electricity, up from 50% in 2010. Eighteen of the 20 countries with the largest electricity access deficits in 2023 were in Sub-Saharan Africa. As in the previous year, the deficits in Nigeria (86.6 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (79.6 million), and Ethiopia (56.4 million) accounted for more than one-third of the globe's population without electricity. The access gap is increasingly concentrated in countries and regions suffering from conflict and violence. These conditions impede economic progress, limit government capacity for implementing grid expansion, and constrain consumer demand.
Rural areas continue to face the most severe access challenges. Rural population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa has outpaced electrification, leaving 451.1 million people in rural areas without electricity in 2023, up from 376 million in 2010. The percentage of residences with access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest in the world. In some remote regions, fewer than one in every 20 households has electricity. Even in areas covered by the electrical grid, power is often unreliable: only about half of areas with electricity access in Sub-Saharan Africa show signs of consistent electricity availability during peak evening hours.
The UN's most recent assessment of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 7, which aims to deliver 'affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all' by 2030, concludes that progress towards universal electricity access by 2030 remains off track, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. At current rates of progress, it estimates that 645 million people around the world will still lack electricity access in 2030, the majority in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Expansion costs are typically higher in Sub-Saharan Africa, as dispersed populations and weak transmission networks increase the per-connection cost of grid investment. Utilities in Sub-Saharan Africa face constraints that limit their ability to raise financing, invest in infrastructure, improve service and generate adequate revenue.
While renewable energy deployment in many African countries is expanding, limited investment, weak grid infrastructure and financing constraints mean the global renewable energy boom has not yet translated into rapid, widespread improvements in electricity access across much of the continent. While Africa accounts for around 20% of the world's population it attracts less than 2% of its spending on clean energy.
Electrification efforts increasingly rely on a mix of grid extension, mini-grids, and off-grid solutions tailored to local conditions. Mini-grids and stand-alone off-grid solar systems have become increasingly important due to their cost-effectiveness in remote and sparsely populated areas. In Sub-Saharan Africa, decentralised systems have accounted for more than half of new electricity connections in recent years (55% over 2020–2022).
The IEA projects that universal access to electricity could be near by 2035 if global efforts were stepped up to rates equivalent to the best achieved so far. In its ACCESS scenario, the IEA estimates that sub-Saharan Africa would need to see 70 million people gain access each year, almost a fourfold increase compared to today. Several Sub-Saharan African countries, including Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar and Ghana, have recently strengthened their electricity access policy frameworks, adopting new targets through Energy Compacts agreed at the African Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam in 2025.
Clean cooking
Clean cooking access remains one of the most persistent energy challenges in Africa. Clean cooking solutions generally refer to fuels and technologies that substantially reduce household air pollution compared with traditional use of firewood, charcoal, dung and crop residues. They include liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, electricity and biogas. Despite global progress, Sub-Saharan Africa remains the only region where the absolute number of people without access is still growing, and in 2023 only 21% of Sub-Saharan African's had access to clean cooking fuels and technologies, "leaving over 900 million people relying on polluting cooking fuels and technologies".:35 Across Africa, firewood, charcoal and residues from agriculture amount to over 53% of total final energy consumption in the entire continent, and in households biomass still makes up the largest share at 85%.