In August, I was in Accra for the African Centre for Energy Policy’s Future of Energy Conference, which brought together policymakers, utility executives, and industrial operators from across West Africa.
Our team at the Energy for Growth Hub hosted a session on Africa’s shadow power grid, sharing new data on how mining and manufacturing firms build parallel power systems to hedge against grid failure, and how utilities can win that demand back.
Five moments, frustrations, and insights still stick with me over a month later:
- Good news! Energy policy is escaping its silo. Coming into the event, I assumed everyone in energy and development policy agreed that energy policy is tied to industrial strategy and economic growth. To my surprise, framing energy as a strategic driver for industrialization and jobs, rather than an isolated utility or home connection metric, still felt like a novel, urgent shift among participants. Seeing regional leaders work to connect energy directly to broader economic goals in real time was eye-opening.
- We are targeting 3-pointers while missing layups. Ghanaian officials and regional policy leaders showed a strong desire on stage to align power with industrial needs, but there was a clear disconnect in execution. Speakers spent time talking about massive ambitions, like powering Ghana’s entire bauxite value chain, without addressing basic first steps, current high power tariffs, or immediate financing realities.
- When I played professional basketball overseas, I learned you have to master layups and free throws, the fundamentals that build your core mechanics, before pulling up for more difficult three-pointers like Steph Curry or Caitlin Clark. Energy policy requires that same progression. Long-term industrial transformation cannot happen without solving immediate, near-term priorities first: stabilizing existing supply, lowering site-level input costs, and fixing basic utility operations. Across many discussions, those practical execution steps were missing.
- Focusing on work culture ignores real operational friction. One speaker surprised me by (somewhat jokingly) arguing African countries (and the African energy sector) need China’s “996” work culture (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week) to develop, leaning into the tired trope that economic lag is driven by culture. I wasn’t buying it, but the audience’s knowing laughter said everything. Sure, worker effort has its challenges anywhere, but culture isn’t what’s holding African business back. The real bottleneck is trying to run a business when the power keeps cutting out, costs keep going up, and the system works against you at every turn.
- Cross-border integration remains aspirational. So many speakers on the stage advocated for cross-border industrial corridors, like the multi-billion-dollar, G7-backed Lobito Corridor connecting Angola, the DRC, and Zambia. But on the ground, institutional fragmentation is rampant. Until regional bodies have actual policy teeth, cross-border corridors will be overridden by national politics and local political economy considerations and remain aspirational.
- On-the-ground competitiveness means outcompeting diesel, not global tariffs. Despite a two-hour delay, our session on diesel generators powering African economies drew a full room. The most pressing questions from the audience afterward hit right at the heart of operational reality:
- If backup generators are already serving as primary power for industrial firms, what does that mean for utility electricity pricing? Are utilities trying to compete against global rock-bottom industrial tariffs, or is the first hurdle simply pricing grid power to outcompete expensive onsite diesel generation?
- This exchange highlighted a small disconnect between panel rhetoric and audience priorities. People on the ground are hungry for realistic pricing models based on site-level conditions, rather than theoretical global benchmarks.
Mastering the Basics Unlocks the Next Level
The conference made me even more optimistic for our Energy for Mining and Industry work at the Hub. I walked away with a clear picture of where energy policymakers want to go, but also a realization that current plans leave a massive gap between grand ambitions and immediate execution.
Layups alone don’t make an All-Star, but you can’t build a championship game without them. Long-term industrial transformation won’t happen until we build a dependable baseline. By helping policymakers and utilities execute those feasible, concrete first steps, we can create the energy foundation for Africa’s industrial future.