How Africa is turning waste into power

From the newsletter

Waste-to-energy is gaining momentum across the continent as governments seek solutions to rising twin waste electricity problems. Announcements in Ghana, South Africa and Morocco this month point to growing efforts to turn waste into power, reduce pressure on landfills and diversify energy sources as intermittent renewables dominate investments.

• In cities especially, waste-to-energy will become an important part of the energy transition. Unlike solar and wind, it can provide stable power because waste is continuous, creating a steady feedstock for electricity generation.

• Rural regions have additional options. Africa’s agricultural economies produce about 1 billion tonnes of waste annually. Some, like Ethiopia, are already harnessing such waste for electricity.

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• Momentum is accelerating through large-scale projects and policy backing. In Ghana, the government signed an agreement with Canadian company Portage Energy Group to develop a national waste-to-energy and sustainable aviation fuel programme. The initiative plans to convert municipal, industrial and agricultural waste into electricity, fuels and industrial by-products, financed largely through private capital rather than public spending.

• In Morocco, authorities are advancing one of the continent’s biggest environmental infrastructure investments. A waste management and energy project valued at roughly $1.3 billion is being supported through public-private partnerships. South African cities are also expanding waste-to-energy efforts. In South Africa, Johannesburg is developing a plant to process 500,000 tonnes of municipal waste annually, while Cape Town has allocated $5.6 million to expand landfill gas-to-power generation at Coastal Park.

• Rapid urbanisation, population growth and rising consumption are increasing waste volumes faster than collection systems and landfills can cope. Most African cities still rely heavily on open dumping and landfill disposal, creating environmental and health risks while wasting a potentially valuable energy resource. Agricultural waste offers major opportunities, with cocoa, sugar, maize and palm residues increasingly seen as feedstock for biofuels, biogas and electricity generation.

• Sugar-producing countries are also turning agricultural waste into electricity. Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Mauritius increasingly use bagasse, the fibrous waste left after sugar processing, to generate industrial power and export surplus electricity to national grids. Landfill gas recovery is also gaining popularity as cities seek to capture methane emissions and convert them into electricity.

• As African countries liberalise power markets, waste-to-energy offers municipalities a way to generate electricity and manage waste while creating new revenue streams. Its stable baseload power could also serve industries needing reliable, cleaner electricity. To make this happen, better waste sorting will be critical to improve feedstock quality, lower costs, and increase efficiency.

• But the economics of WtE projects are not yet clear in Africa due to the type of waste generated, which is often not sorted. However, it has worked successfully in countries like Sweden, which has performed so well that it imports waste. This is because of strong supportive policies and regulations, such as a ban on landfills, and the development of necessary WtE infrastructure and incentives to support recycling.

Our take

• It is high time WtE receives greater attention from governments and policymakers. Recognising it as part of the clean energy mix could unlock incentives and policy support, making the technology more competitive and attractive to investors.

• As power systems across Africa become more decentralised, cities can tap into WtE to support grid balancing. These projects provide steady, dispatchable power that complements intermittent solar and wind generation.

• With 1.4 billion Africans expected to live in cities by 2050, urban waste could become both a liability and an opportunity. Early investment in WtE, recycling and efficient urban planning will help prevent future crises and support rising energy demand sustainably.