THE CARBON WAR

260
The Winning of The Carbon War
next 800MW will be cheaper still: competitive with any generation technology,
including coal, on price. With eight Saudi conglomerates as investors, and
many billions of dollars to invest in the years ahead, Acwa Power is an icon of
the energy transition.
We are expanding from the Gulf countries into Africa, Paddy says. We look
for reasonable returns, not excessive profits. To get returns over the long-lifetime
power-plant projects we are locked into, we need to take an interest in the
long-term prospects of the economies where we are working. So it is essential
to partner with local communities on projects that build social cohesion.
This is where solar can come in, I think to myself, at all levels of the energy
ladder from solar lights up to solar farms.
Another presenter, an investor, wonders how Sub-Saharan Africa, with
all the resources it has, over such a vast area, can today muster less collective
GDP than Germany’s. Think of the growth potential, he exhorts.
James Cameron, chair of the Overseas Development Institute, and my
long-time friend and collaborator, elaborates on this theme. Distributed power
distributes power, he enthuses. You have to look where the players with the big
balance sheets are investing effort in the world today. You have to have to have
faith in the new technologies that, crucially, can get you power quicker than
the old incumbents. Roughly $100bn has gone into African infrastructure this
last year, much of it into renewables.
And so the day goes on, as presentations and discussions come and go
around the two end member visions: a revolution focussing on insurgency disruptor
industries, or an explosion of the old technologies and industries. What
nobody disagrees on is the need for Africa to be lifted out of general energy
poverty as soon as possible. Several speakers show the famous cloud-free-collage
image-from-space showing Europe and Africa at night: Europe mostly lit
up, Africa mostly dark. This has to change. If economies are to develop, and
poverty is to be eradicated, African energy supply must grow fast.
Simon Catt, the GMP executive who convened this fascinating and useful
meeting of minds, visions and business models, is a true believer in the solar
revolution story, and very much wants it to extend all the way to the bottom
of the pyramid. He is motivated by both the thought of the prosperity the
revolution will spawn, and the social good it can do. He is a keen supporter of
SolarAid, accordingly.
My SolarAid colleagues man a stand at Simon’s event all through the
day, doing brisk business explaining our mission to the executives attending.