African representatives met at a World Future Council workshop with the Alliance for Rural Electrification (ARE) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Addis Ababa to collaborate on a plan to increase sustainability for the continent creating the African Renewable Energy Alliance (AREA). The agreement, initially funded by the World Future Council, will have utilities, industry, policy-makers, and the civil society working together to increase the use of sustainable electrification and thermal power.
Participants included Prof. Abubakar S. Sambo, Director General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, Thembani Bukula, Head of the Electricity Regulation of South Africa, Ephrem Hassen Gossoma, Head of Bio-fuel Development in the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines and Energy and Tony Colman, former UK Parliamentarian, WFC Councilor and Director of Africa Practice.
Abel Didier Tella, Secretary General of Union of African utilities UPDEA, which represents 54 private and public electricity producers and distributors in 43 African countries, said: “True exchange of information on new technologies as well as workable funding mechanisms for Renewable Energy is exactly what is needed. By creating this Alliance we expect to create an on-going exchange and to speed up Renewable Energy production in Africa.”