Africa’s electricity challenge is not simply a shortage of grid connections but the reliability of the power those connections deliver, according to Schneider Electric, which is urging governments and investors to measure energy access by dependable supply rather than connections alone.
The President for the Middle East and Africa at Schneider Electric, Walid Sheta, argued that conventional measures of electrification can overstate progress because a connection does not guarantee electricity when homes, businesses and public institutions need it.
Sub-Saharan Africa has an electricity access rate of about 53 per cent, leaving more than 560 million people without access, according to the figures cited by Schneider. But Sheta argued that the statistics fail to capture the impact of frequent outages on facilities that are technically connected to the grid.
He pointed to hospitals that risk losing power during vaccine deliveries, schools that organise lessons around available electricity and factories that operate diesel generators alongside grid connections as examples of infrastructure that is connected but does not necessarily have dependable power.
The argument comes as African economies seek to sustain growth while dealing with higher imported costs for fuel, fertiliser and shipping. The International Monetary Fund estimates that the region grew 4.5 per cent in 2025, its fastest pace in a decade, while warning that a 20 per cent increase in international food prices could push more than 20 million people in the region into moderate or severe food insecurity.
Sheta linked the reliability of electricity directly to that economic pressure, noting that irrigation, refrigeration, milling and cold storage all depend on consistent power.
“Reliability is not a technical footnote to Africa’s growth story. It is economic policy,” he wrote.
Schneider also argued that part of Africa’s electricity deficit could be addressed by improving the performance of existing infrastructure rather than relying solely on new generation capacity.
At Kenya’s Masinga hydro plant, ageing control systems had reduced effective output from 40MW to about 26MW, according to the company. Modernising the controls restored the plant’s full 40MW capacity without requiring a new dam.
In Nigeria, Schneider cited Ikeja Electric’s phased digitisation of its distribution network as having reduced grid system downtime by about 33 per cent. At RCL Foods’ Pongola sugar mill in South Africa, replacing a 30-year-old control system reportedly reduced seasonal blackouts from about 40 to three and increased throughput by 20 per cent. Related News
“The megawatts existed. Intelligence released them,” Sheta wrote, arguing that Africa should assess how much of its existing generation and distribution capacity is actually reaching consumers before committing to another wave of generation projects.
The company also sees digital infrastructure and distributed energy systems as part of the continent’s next phase of electrification. Schneider highlighted IX Africa’s data centre project in Nairobi, which has 22.5MW live within a 42MW design capacity and a planned expansion to 53MW.
The facility operates on Kenya’s grid, which Schneider described as roughly 92 per cent renewable, with critical switchgear manufactured locally.
For areas that remain beyond the reach of reliable national grids, Sheta argued that microgrids and digitally managed distributed generation could provide dependable electricity while wider grid infrastructure is developed.
The investment implications are significant. In 2025, 48 African countries endorsed the Dar es Salaam Declaration supporting Mission 300, an initiative to connect 300 million people to electricity by 2030.
Schneider supports the target but argues that the success of the initiative should not be judged by connections alone.
“Investment must reward power that is delivered, not connections that are declared,” Sheta wrote.
He also pointed to increasing Gulf investment in African infrastructure and the digital economy, arguing that the opportunity for investors lies increasingly in building electricity systems capable of providing reliable and measurable supply.
Schneider has a commercial interest in that transition. The company provides energy-management, automation and digital technologies for electricity infrastructure and says its Access to Energy programme has provided clean and reliable electricity to more than 60 million people since 2009 while training more than one million people in energy management.
Sheta argued that expanding local technical capacity would be essential to ensuring that investments in energy technology deliver lasting improvements.
“Africa’s energy future will be judged in hours of dependable power,” he wrote.
=PUNCH=
