Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Africa’s renewable energy ambitions continue to be slowed by severe logistical and procedural bottlenecks that repeatedly push projects off schedule, it has been revealed.
This is coming as the disruptions in the energy supply chains occasioned by COVID-19 and recent, as well as ongoing, global geopolitical events are all too vivid.
At a time when energy costs have increased, as the prices for engineering, procurement, and construction contracts are making energy projects more expensive, Africa is being encouraged to mitigate the impacts of global shocks on energy systems.
This was revealed during a high-level panel discussion on resilient energy solutions at the Africa Investment Forum Market Days 2025 being held in Rabat, Morocco, by AMEA Power chairperson Hussain Al Nowais.
AMEA Power is based in the United Arab Emirates and is one of the fastest-growing renewable energy companies, with a clean energy pipeline of over 6 gigawatts across 20 countries.
Founded in 2016, AMEA Power has assembled a leading team of global industry experts to deliver projects across Africa, the Middle East, and other emerging markets.
Al Nowais said the logistic constraints and development finance institution (DFI) requirements were some of the barriers facing developers.
This, he added, pointed to sheer time limits, port congestion, inland transport delays, custom bottlenecks, and months and costs to project time limits.
He said that although DFIs played a crucial role in financing clean-energy projects, the complexity and duration of their endeavouring processes often extended project timelines.
According to Al Nowais, these delays “create frustration for both development and governments,” making it necessary “to streamline country-specific approaches that mainly govern fast-track delivery.”
“Despite these challenges, African opportunity is significant. Otherwise, we would not be here. The potential is big,” he said.
He emphasised that the continent “holds 60% of the world’s solar resources” and benefits from “exceptional wind power” and “constantly growing demand, driven by industrialisation and population growth.”
Drawing on his company’s experience, Al Nowais noted:
“At AMEA Power, we have seen this progress firsthand, developing large-scale and renewable energy projects, partnering with governments, and closing financing with DFI in a comprehensive manner.”
He added that the company will shortly commission a landmark project.
“In fact, I’m proud to say that AMEA Power, in the next two months, will be launching the operation of Africa’s largest single solar power plant in Egypt, which is 1 000MW (megawatts), together with 800MW of battery storage,” Al Nowais said.
“That is the scale of a project Africa needs.”
He said strengthening institutions remained essential to accelerating delivery.
“One more thing I’m always emphasising is capacity building within the institution, the regulators, and the utilities,” Al Nowais said.
“Sometimes we sit across the table from a utility where the experience or the knowledge is not on the low side. That needs capacity building.”
He urged all partners to support the utilities, respect government departments, and educate people on the need to understand what the right conditions were.
He, however, said Africa’s potential exceeds the challenge, adding that African people had broken these challenges and that there were some fantastic, strong, capable people.
“Africa’s potential far exceeds these challenges,” Al Nowais said.
“If we focus on a practical reform that enables projects to move from concept to construction and to machining, developers in Africa will unlock investment at the scale required and build a power sector that is reliable, sustainable, and fit for the future.”
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