If Africa wants to realise its ambitions of a Cape-to-Cairo trade route of bankable renewable energy suppliers, it’s going to need political will that crosses national borders. Last month, the southern continent’s economic bloc SADC announced that it is on track to launch its regional renewable energy strategy next year, writes Leonie Joubert. ‘If you want to farm here, you’d have to have rocks in your head,’ a local water expert once told me, referring to the central and western regions of Southern Africa, which on maps is blocked out in beige to show that it’s mostly near-desert. And he has a point. Parts of this region are so dry that some of the Karoo locals joke that you can only farm with ‘klippe en sand’ (rocks and stones). But that’s only true if you’re thinking about the conventional forms of farming. If you want to farm with sunlight, then this is precisely where you want to be. Africa has an estimated 20,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) of potential solar power streaming down onto it each year, … Continue reading The Southern African Development Community (SADC) teams up on renewables and energy efficiency – A view from South Africa