Africa’s energy sector in 2025: transitions under constraint.

Between the announced surge in renewables, the gamble on gas, strained networks and the hydroelectric symbolism of the Grand Renaissance Dam, 2025 sketches a picture of an African energy landscape in motion. Behind the major projects, the central issue remains that of energy security and sharing.

A review of energy dynamics in 2025 reveals a series of clearly emerging structural trends. The year highlights several major driving forces: the acceleration of renewables, the renewed prominence of gas as a transition energy, persistent pressure on infrastructure, and the rise of hydroelectric power charged with geopolitical significance. Across these developments, the same question keeps resurfacing, from Mali to the Horn of Africa: how can access to energy be secured while preparing for tomorrow’s transition?

Renewable energy: a global shift, an uneven African catch-up

In 2025, the global energy transition has taken on a very concrete form: most new power-generation capacity coming on stream worldwide is now renewable, and solar has become the dominant technology in investment plans. Africa is no exception to this trend, although the pace remains uneven. Over the past decade, installed renewable capacity on the continent has almost doubled, yet this has still not been enough to make up for the backlog in access to electricity.

In sub-Saharan Africa, scenarios looking ahead to 2030 point towards a catch-up dynamic: the region could add several tens of gigawatts of additional renewable energy, driven largely by solar photovoltaics. Falling costs, the growing number of competitive tenders and the arrival of new specialised financial partners have created a more favourable environment than a decade ago, even though projects still face constraints related to grids, financing and governance.

In Mali, the priority is to accelerate self-generation by households and small businesses. The initial cost of off-grid solar systems—largely driven by batteries—remains high for part of the population, creating the perception that the cost per kilowatt-hour is higher than the official tariff of urban thermal power plants. However, when the lifespan of the equipment, the absence of recurring fuel costs and the reliability of a service not subject to power cuts are taken into account, the comparison shifts. In the long term, solar energy proves more predictable for household budgets and less vulnerable to logistical disruptions. It is this economic equation, more than strictly environmental arguments, that explains the gradual rise of self-production in a context of prolonged energy crisis.

That said, the development of renewables cannot be reduced to a simple accumulation of projects. It also raises the question of their integration into fragile power systems marked by ageing networks, significant technical losses and, in some countries, a persistent dependence on fuel oil and diesel. It is at the intersection of these constraints that Africa’s ability to turn its solar, wind and hydropower potential into a genuine lever for energy security and stability will be decided.

Gas: transition fuel or risky gamble?

In 2025, natural gas has more than ever established itself as a transition energy in official African discourse. For many governments, it represents both a more competitive source of electricity than fuel oil and diesel, a potential source of export revenues, and a means of securing fuel supplies in a context of high volatility on international markets. Yet this positioning comes at a time when most major economies are announcing their gradual exit from fossil fuels, raising the question of the actual time window available to the continent to monetise its resources.

At the regional infrastructure level, the Nigeria–Morocco gas pipeline project remains the most striking symbol of this strategy. Designed to link the Niger Delta to the Atlantic coast of north-west Africa and, beyond that, to Europe, it concentrates as many hopes as it does uncertainties regarding its financing, timetable and the reality of future demand. At another scale, more advanced projects such as the development of the Tendrara gas field in Morocco or the gradual commissioning of the Temane gas-fired power plant in Mozambique illustrate a more pragmatic approach: using gas to shore up fragile national power systems, with immediate capacity gains.

The ramp-up of the Dangote mega-refinery in Nigeria adds another dimension to this landscape. By significantly increasing the supply of refined fuels for the Nigerian market and potentially for part of the sub-region, this industrial complex aims to reduce the country’s historic dependence on imported petroleum products. For neighbouring countries, often confronted with shortages whenever international logistics falter, this development could eventually alter supply flows, without, however, eliminating questions of pricing, long-term contracts and the concentration of capacity in the hands of a limited number of players.

Overall, gas appears less as an obvious solution than as a calculated bet: it can help stabilise power grids and support growth in the short to medium term, but it forces states to carefully balance heavy investment, uncertainty over future demand and the imperative not to compromise their decarbonisation trajectory.

Infrastructure and security of supply: production is not enough

While 2025 confirms the rise of renewables and gas, it also serves as a reminder of a more prosaic reality: producing energy is not enough—there must also be the capacity to transport it, distribute it and secure the flows that sustain existing systems. In several African countries, transmission and distribution networks remain the weak link, with saturated lines, high technical losses and public utilities under severe financial pressure.

The fuel crisis affecting Mali at the end of the year offers a stark illustration. Just a few weeks of disruption along hydrocarbon supply routes were enough to trigger visible shortages at filling stations, endless queues and the temporary closure of schools and universities. Beyond the country’s specific security context, the episode highlights the fragility of a model in which a significant share of electricity generation still relies on thermal power plants dependent on imported diesel and heavy fuel oil.

In this context, the case of the Albatros power plant in Kayes neatly encapsulates the dilemmas of energy governance. After a period of contractual tension and the announcement of termination, the Malian state ultimately reversed its decision in order to reconnect a capacity deemed indispensable to the grid. The message is twofold: on the one hand, the immediate need to secure every available megawatt in a structurally deficit system; on the other, the realisation that the credibility of the contractual framework remains a key factor in mobilising private investment in electricity infrastructure.

Hydropower and geopolitics: the signal from the Blue Nile

Among the events marking Africa’s energy landscape in 2025, the official inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) occupies a special place. With an installed capacity of over 5,000 MW, this dam on the Blue Nile is set to become the backbone of Ethiopia’s power system and a major lever for electricity exports to neighbouring countries. It encapsulates both the promises and the tensions now associated with hydropower on the continent: an instrument of sovereignty and development for some, a source of existential concern for others.

For Addis Ababa, the GERD embodies the ambition to permanently overcome recurring power cuts, support industrialisation and monetise a hydroelectric potential long regarded as underexploited. Ethiopia also sees it as a powerful political marker: the ability of an African country to finance and manage a project of this scale without having all its terms dictated from outside. From the Ethiopian perspective, the challenge is as symbolic as it is energy-related.

Downstream, the view is quite different. Egypt, whose agriculture and water supply depend heavily on the Nile, continues to see the GERD as a strategic risk. Negotiations over the filling and operating rules of the dam have helped avert the worst, but have not entirely dispelled fears of an impact on available flows during periods of drought. Sudan, caught between significant electricity needs and its own concerns over water security, illustrates the delicate position of intermediary countries in such configurations. Much like the regional tensions observed around Turkish dams on the Euphrates and Tigris, the GERD is a reminder that hydropower can be both an instrument of sovereignty and a source of friction between riparian states.

Beyond the Ethiopian case alone, the GERD sends a broader signal: at a time when solar and wind power are gaining ground, hydropower remains a central instrument of African energy policy, with a geopolitical dimension that is rarely neutral when river basins are shared. How this project is managed over time—in terms of cooperation, transparency and the sharing of benefits—will be closely watched by other countries engaged in large-scale hydroelectric programmes. It will help, in part, to shape the contours of an African energy diplomacy, defined by urgent needs, asserted sovereignty and hydrological interdependencies that are difficult to circumvent.

Between the promises of transition and on-the-ground realities, 2025 closes no doors but forces choices to be clarified. How states manage these trade-offs will determine whether this energy in motion becomes a lasting lever—or yet another risk.