Energy for Mining & Industry

The Issue

Costly and unreliable power stifles Africa’s industrial growth.

• Outages damage equipment, suppress productivity, and force firms off-grid, raising the cost of doing business.
• Insufficient power keeps economies concentrated in raw extraction and low-tech activity, limiting gains from higher-value global supply chains.
• Poor power infrastructure prevents many firms and jobs from being created in the first place.

Relevance

No country has ever created competitive industries and a prosperous economy with low energy consumption. The world is hungry for Africa’s mineral resources, yet African governments are rejecting extractive models of the past and calling for more home-grown value addition and manufacturing. The resounding message: Africans want sovereignty, growth, and jobs. Realizing both global aims of supply chain diversification and Africa’s economic ambitions hinges on reliable, low-cost, scalable energy for industry.

Our Approach

Energy scarcity is a bottleneck to industrial growth in Africa. To change that, we tackle three core questions:

• How can industrial energy demand, including from mining and minerals processing, drive energy infrastructure expansion and industrial growth?
• What energy and policy constraints are limiting local value addition across specific industrial activities like manufacturing, agro processing, textile production, and mining?
• What shifts in utility, governments, and investor priorities are needed to move beyond extraction and support real industrial growth in Africa?