Lights out for oil-rich Nigeria

Eviation Collapse underscores electric aviation headwinds, from Alice aircraft battery limits to FAA/EASA certification hurdles, funding shortfalls, and leadership instability, reshaping sustainability roadmaps for regional airliners and future zero-emission flight.

Key Points

Eviation Collapse is the 2025 shutdown of Eviation Aircraft, revealing battery, certification, and funding hurdles.

✅ Battery energy density limits curtailed Alice's range

✅ FAA/EASA certification timelines delayed commercialization

✅ Funding gaps and leadership churn undermined execution

The electric aviation industry was poised to revolutionize the skies through an aviation revolution with startups like Eviation Aircraft leading the charge to bring environmentally friendly, cost-efficient electric airplanes into commercial use. However, in a shocking turn of events, Eviation has faced an abrupt collapse, signaling challenges that may impact the future of electric flight.

Eviation’s Vision and Early Promise

Founded in 2015, Eviation was an ambitious electric airplane startup with the goal of changing the way the world thinks about aviation. The company’s flagship product, the Alice aircraft, was designed to be an all-electric regional airliner capable of carrying up to 9 passengers. With a focus on sustainability, reduced operating costs, and a quieter flight experience, Alice attracted attention as one of the most promising electric aircraft in development.

Eviation’s aircraft was aimed at replacing small, inefficient, and environmentally damaging regional aircraft, reducing emissions in the aviation industry. The startup’s vision was bold: to create an airplane that could offer all the benefits of electric power – lower operating costs, less noise, and a smaller environmental footprint. Their goal was not only to attract major airlines but also to pave the way for a more sustainable future in aviation.

The company’s early success was driven by substantial investments and partnerships. It garnered attention from aviation giants and venture capitalists alike, drawing support for its innovative technology. In fact, in 2019, Eviation secured a deal with the Israeli airline, El Al, for several aircraft, a deal that seemed to promise a bright future for the company.

Challenges in the Electric Aviation Industry

Despite its early successes and strong backing, Eviation faced considerable challenges that eventually contributed to its downfall. The electric aviation sector, as promising as it seemed, has always been riddled with hurdles – from battery technology to regulatory approvals, and compounded by Europe’s EV slump that dampened clean-transport sentiment, the path to producing commercially viable electric airplanes has proven more difficult than initially anticipated.

The first major issue Eviation encountered was the slow development of battery technology. While electric car companies like Tesla were able to scale their operations quickly during the electric vehicle boom due to advancements in battery efficiency, aviation technology faced a more significant obstacle. The energy density required for a plane to fly long distances with sufficient payload was far greater than what existing battery technology could offer. This limitation severely impacted the range of the Alice aircraft, preventing it from meeting the expectations set by its creators.

Another challenge was the lengthy regulatory approval process for electric aircraft. Aviation is one of the most regulated industries in the world, and getting a new aircraft certified for flight takes time and rigorous testing. Although Eviation’s Alice was touted as an innovative leap in aviation technology, the company struggled to navigate the complex process of meeting the safety and operational standards required by aviation authorities, such as the FAA and EASA.

Financial Difficulties and Leadership Changes

As challenges mounted, Eviation’s financial situation became increasingly precarious. The company struggled to secure additional funding to continue its development and scale operations. Investors, once eager to back the promising startup, grew wary as timelines stretched and costs climbed, amid a U.S. EV market share dip in early 2024, tempering enthusiasm. With the electric aviation market still in its early stages, Eviation faced stiff competition from more established players, including large aircraft manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus, who also began to invest heavily in electric and hybrid-electric aircraft technologies.

Leadership instability also played a role in Eviation’s collapse. The company went through several executive changes over a short period, and management’s inability to solidify a clear vision for the future raised concerns among stakeholders. The lack of consistent leadership hindered the company’s ability to make decisions quickly and efficiently, further exacerbating its financial challenges.

The Sudden Collapse

In 2025, Eviation made the difficult decision to shut down its operations. The company announced the closure after failing to secure enough funding to continue its development and meet its ambitious production goals. The sudden collapse of Eviation sent shockwaves through the electric aviation sector, where many had placed their hopes on the startup’s innovative approach to electric flight.

The failure of Eviation has left many questioning the future of electric aviation. While the industry is still in its infancy, Eviation’s downfall serves as a cautionary tale about the challenges of bringing cutting-edge technology to the skies. The ambitious vision of a sustainable, electric future in aviation may still be achievable, but the path to success will require overcoming significant technological, regulatory, and financial obstacles.

What’s Next for Electric Aviation?

Despite Eviation’s collapse, the electric aviation sector is far from dead. Other companies, such as Joby Aviation, Vertical Aerospace, and Ampaire, are continuing to develop electric and hybrid-electric aircraft, building on milestones like Canada’s first commercial electric flight that signal ongoing demand for green alternatives to traditional aviation.

Moreover, major aircraft manufacturers are doubling down on their own electric aircraft projects. Boeing, for example, has launched several initiatives aimed at reducing carbon emissions in aviation, while Harbour Air’s point-to-point e-seaplane flight showcases near-term regional progress, and Airbus is testing a hybrid-electric airliner prototype. The collapse of Eviation may slow down progress, but it is unlikely to derail the broader movement toward electric flight entirely.

The lessons learned from Eviation’s failure will undoubtedly inform the future of the electric aviation sector. Innovation, perseverance, and a steady stream of investment will be critical for the success of future electric aircraft startups, as exemplified by Harbour Air’s research-driven electric aircraft efforts that highlight the value of sustained R&D. While the dream of electric planes may have suffered a setback, the long-term vision of cleaner, more sustainable aviation is still alive.

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Texas PUC Appointments signal post-storm reform as Gov. Greg Abbott taps Peter Lake and advances Will McAdams for Senate confirmation, affecting ERCOT oversight, grid reliability, wholesale power pricing, and securitization for co-ops.

Key Points

Texas PUC appointments add Peter Lake and Will McAdams to steer ERCOT, grid reliability, and market policy.

✅ Peter Lake nominated chair to replace Arthur D'Andrea.

✅ Will McAdams advances toward Senate confirmation.

✅ Focus on ERCOT oversight, price cap debate, grid resilience.

A new set of Texas electricity regulators began to take shape Monday, as Gov. Greg Abbott nominated a finance expert to be the next chairman of the Public Utility Commission while his earlier choice of a PUC member moved toward Senate confirmation.

The Republican governor put forward Peter Lake of Austin, who has spent more than five years as an Abbott appointee to the Texas Water Development Board, as his second commission pick in as many weeks.

“I am confident he will bring a fresh perspective and trustworthy leadership to the PUC,” Abbott said of Lake, who once worked as a trader of futures and derivatives for a firm belonging to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and more recently has eagerly promoted bonds for the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas.

“Peter’s expertise in the Texas energy industry and business management will make him an asset to the agency,” Abbott, who has touted grid readiness in recent months, said in a written statement. “I urge the Senate to swiftly confirm Peter’s appointment.”

On Monday, the Senate appeared to be moving quickly to confirm Abbott’s April 1 selection for the PUC, Will McAdams, president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas and a former legislative aide who helped write policy for regulated industries such as electricity.

McAdams was among the 129 nominees that the Senate Nominations Committee voted out, 8-0. His nomination heads now to the Senate floor.

All three of Abbott’s handpicked PUC commissioners who were in place before and during February’s calamitous winter storm have since quit or said they’re resigning, even as Sierra Club criticism of Abbott's demands intensified in the aftermath.

February’s polar vortex left in its wake physical and financial wreckage after a nonprofit grid operator answering to the PUC, amid calls for market reforms to avoid blackouts, shut off electricity to more than 4 million Texans, causing the deaths of at least 125 people, 13 of them in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday named Will McAdams to the embattled Public Utility Commission of Texas. McAdams is a construction industry lobbyist with strong ties to the GOP-controlled Legislature. In Feb. 17 file photo, winter storm's snowfall andn large electrical transmission lines in South Arlington are pictured.

In a 45-minute confirmation hearing, McAdams, as lawmakers discussed ways to improve electricity reliability statewide, drew praise – and few tough questions.

McAdams, who previously worked for three GOP senators, testified that had he been on the commission in February, he would not have kept in place a controversial, $9,000-per-megawatt hour price cap on wholesale power for about 32 hours on Feb. 18-19.

“I don’t see myself making that decision,” he said.

McAdams, though, hedged slightly, saying he’s not privy to all information that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, and the PUC may have had at their disposal during the crisis.

The comments were notable because Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the Senate have fought with Abbott and the House over $16 billion in overcharges that, according to an independent market monitor, wrongly accrued near the end of the Feb. 15-19 outages.

Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, said the commission’s former chairwoman, DeAnn Walker, and Bill Magness, president of ERCOT, decided to hold the high cap in place because there “was still great concern about grid stability, even though there was significant reserves.”

He pressed McAdams to call that incorrect, which McAdams did.

“Given the fact pattern that I’m privy to, senator,” it wasn’t the right move, he said. “But again, there may be other facts out there. There probably are.”

McAdams acknowledged many homeowners and businesses were traumatized.

“The public’s confidence in the ability of the PUC to effectively regulate our electric markets has been badly damaged and shaken,” he said.

McAdams spoke favorably of renewable energy, calling wind and solar “absolutely valuable resources,” as the electricity sector faces profound change nationwide. To whatever extent those are not available, the PUC should “firm that up” with “dispatchable forms of generation,” such as gas, coal and nuclear, McAdams said.

He also called for lawmakers to consider providing electricity market bailout through “securitization,” or low-interest bond financing, to rural electric co-ops that were unable to pay the massive wholesale power bills they racked up during the February crisis.

“It would prevent those systems from having to front-load those costs onto their own members and smooth that out over a term of years,” while preventing an “uplift” of costs to other market participants who wisely hedged against soaring prices, McAdams said.

Noting that more than 400 bills have been filed to change ERCOT and how it’s governed, and as Texans prepare to vote on grid modernization funding this year, McAdams told the Senate panel, “It is clear to me that the Legislature wants meaningful changes to the status quo – to ensure that something positive comes out of this tragedy.”

Lake, who if confirmed by the Senate would replace Arthur D’Andrea as PUC chairman, grew up in Tyler. He attended prep school in New England and earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a master of business administration degree from Stanford University.

He then worked for a commodities trading firm, a behavioral health company and as a business consultant before he became director of business development for Tyler-based Lake Ronel Oil Co. in 2014.

In late 2015, Abbott named Lake to the Texas Water Development Board and in February 2018 picked him to be the chairman of the three-member board that seeks to ensure water supplies for a fast-growing state.

Lake has steered the water board as it rolled out additional loans for water projects, approved by the Legislature and voters in 2013, and took the lead after Hurricane Harvey on flood control planning and infrastructure financing.

He’s posted exuberantly on Twitter as he toured agricultural water installations, lakes in West Texas and river authorities.

If confirmed, Lake and McAdams each would make $189,500 a year.

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Hydroelectric retrofits for unpowered dams leverage turbines to add renewable capacity, bolster grid reliability, and enable low-impact energy storage, supporting U.S. and Canada decarbonization goals with lower costs, minimal habitat disruption, and climate resilience.

Key Points

They add turbines to existing dams to make clean power, stabilize the grid, and offer low-impact storage at lower cost.

✅ Lower capex than new dams; minimal habitat disruption

✅ Adds firming and storage to support wind and solar

✅ New low-head turbines unlock more retrofit sites

As countries race to get their power grids off fossil fuels to fight climate change, there's a big push in the U.S. to upgrade dams built for purposes such as water management or navigation with a feature they never had before — hydroelectric turbines. 

And the strategy is being used in parts of Canada, too, with growing interest in hydropower from Canada supplying New York and New England.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration says only three per cent of 90,000 U.S. dams currently generate electricity. A 2012 report from the U.S. Department of Energy found that those dams have 12,000 megawatts (MW) of potential hydroelectric generation capacity. (According to the National Hydropower Association, 1 MW can power 750 to 1,000 homes. That means 12,000 MW should be able to power more than nine million homes.)

As of May 2019, there were projects planned to convert 32 unpowered dams to add 330 MW to the grid over the next several years.

One that was recently completed was the Red Rock Hydroelectric Project, a 60-year-old flood control dam on the Des Moines River in Iowa that was retrofitted in 2014 to generate 36.4 MW at normal reservoir levels, and up to 55 MW at high reservoir levels and flows. It started feeding power to the grid this spring, and is expected to generate enough annually to supply power to 18,000 homes.

It's an approach that advocates say can convert more of the grid from fossil fuels to clean energy, often with a lower cost and environmental impact than building new dams.

Hydroelectric facilities can also be used for energy storage, complementing intermittent clean energy sources such as wind and solar with pumped storage to help maintain a more reliable, resilient grid.

The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund are two environmental groups that oppose new hydro dams because they can block fish migration, harm water quality, damage surrounding ecosystems and release methane and CO2, and in some regions, Western Canada drought has reduced hydropower output as reservoirs run low. But they say adding turbines to non-powered dams can be part of a shift toward low-impact hydro projects that can support expansion of solar and wind power.

Paul Norris, president of the Ontario Waterpower Association, said there's typically widespread community support for such projects in his province amid ongoing debate over whether Ontario is embracing clean power in its future plans. "Any time that you can better use existing assets, I think that's a good thing."

New turbine technology means water doesn't need to fall from as great a height to generate power, providing opportunities at sites that weren't commercially viable in the past, Norris said, with recent investments such as new turbines in Manitoba showing what is possible.

In Ontario, about 1,000 unpowered dams are owned by various levels of government. "With the appropriate policy framework, many of these assets have the potential to be retrofitted for small hydro," Norris wrote in a letter to Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator this year as part of a discussion on small-scale local energy generation resources.

He told CBC that several such projects are already in operation, such as a 950 kW retrofit of the McLeod Dam at the Moira River in Belleville, Ont., in 2008. 

Four hydro stations were going to be added during dam refurbishment on the Trent-Severn Waterway, but they were among 758 renewable energy projects cancelled by Premier Doug Ford's government after his election in 2018, a move examined in an analysis of Ontario's dirtier electricity outlook and its implications.

Patrick Bateman, senior vice-president of Waterpower Canada, said such dam retrofit projects are uncommon in most provinces. "I don't see it being a large part of the future electricity generation capacity."

He said there has been less movement on retrofitting unpowered dams in Canada compared to the U.S., because:

There are a lot more opportunities in Canada to refurbish large, existing hydro-generating stations to boost capacity on a bigger scale.

There's less growth in demand for clean energy, because more of Canada's grid is already non-carbon-emitting (80 per cent) compared to the U.S. (40 per cent).

Even so, Norris thinks Canadians should be looking at all opportunities and options when it comes to transitioning the grid away from fossil fuels, including retrofitting non-powered dams, especially as a recent report highlights Canada's looming power problem over the coming decades.

"If we're going to be serious about addressing the inevitable challenges associated with climate change targets and net zero, it really is an all-of-the-above approach."

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California Public Safety Power Shutoffs highlight wildfire prevention as PG&E outages disrupt schools, businesses, and rural communities, driving generator use, economic hardship, and emergency preparedness across Northern California during high-wind events.

Key Points

Utility outages to reduce wildfire risk during extreme winds, impacting homes and businesses in high-risk California.

✅ PG&E cuts power during high winds to prevent wildfires

✅ Costs rise for generators, fuel, batteries, and spoiled food

✅ Rural, low-income communities face greater economic losses

The intentional blackout by California’s largest utility this week put Forest Jones out of work and his son out of school. On Friday morning Mr. Jones, a handyman and single father, sat in his apartment above a tattoo parlor waiting for the power to come back on and for school to reopen.

“I’ll probably lose $400 or $500 dollars because of this,” said Mr. Jones, who lives in the town of Paradise, which was razed by fire last year and is slowly rebuilding. “Things have been really tough up here.”

Millions of people were affected by the blackout, which spanned the outskirts of Silicon Valley to the forests of Humboldt County near the Oregon border. But the outage, which the power company said was necessary to reduce wildfire risk across the region, also drew a line between those who were merely inconvenienced and those who faced a major financial hardship.

To have the lights on, the television running and kitchen appliances humming is often taken for granted in America, even as U.S. grid during coronavirus questions persisted. During California’s blackout it became an economic privilege.

The economic impacts of the shut-off were especially acute in rural, northern towns like Paradise, where incomes are a fraction of those in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Both wealthy and poorer areas were affected by the blackout but interviews across the state suggested that being forced off the grid disproportionately hurt the less affluent. One family in Humboldt County said they had spent $150 on batteries and water alone during the shutdown.

“To be prepared costs money,” Sue Warhaftig, a massage therapist who lives in Mill Valley, a wealthy suburb across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. Ms. Warhaftig spent around two days without electricity but said she had been spared from significant sacrifices during the blackout.

She invested in a generator to keep the refrigerator running and to provide some light. She cooked in the family’s Volkswagen camper van in her driveway. At night she watched Netflix on her phone, which she was able to charge with the generator. Her husband, a businessman, is in London on a work trip. Her two sons, both grown, live in Southern California and Seattle.

“We were inconvenienced but life wasn’t interrupted,” Ms. Warhaftig said. “But so many people’s lives were.

Pacific Gas & Electric restored power to large sections of Northern California on Friday, including Paradise, where the electricity came back on in the afternoon. But hundreds of thousands of people in other areas remained in the dark. The carcasses of burned cars still littered the landscape around Paradise, where 86 people died in the Camp Fire last year, some of them while trying to escape.

Officials at power company said that by Saturday they hoped to have restored power to 98 percent of the customers who were affected.

The same dangerous winds that spurred the shut-off in Northern California have put firefighters to work in the south. The authorities in Los Angeles County ordered the evacuation of nearly 100,000 people on Friday as the Saddleridge Fire burned nearly 5,000 acres and destroyed 25 structures. The Sandalwood Fire, which ignited Thursday in Riverside County, had spread to more than 800 acres and destroyed 74 structures by Friday afternoon.

While this week’s outage was the first time many customers in Northern California experienced a deliberate power shut-off, residents in and around Paradise have had their power cut four times in recent months, residents say.

Many use a generator, but running one has become increasingly expensive with gasoline now at more than $4 a gallon in California.

On Friday, Dennis and Viola Timmer drove up the hill to their home in Magalia, a town adjacent to Paradise, loaded with $102 dollars of gasoline for their generators. It was their second gasoline run since the power went out Tuesday night.

The couple, retired and on a fixed income after Mr. Timmer’s time in the Navy and in construction, said the power outage had severely limited their ability to do essential tasks like cooking, or to leave the house.

“You know what it feels like? You’re in jail,” said Ms. Timmer, 72. “You can’t go anywhere with the generators running.”

Since the generators are not powerful enough to run heat or air conditioning, the couple slept in their den with an electric space heater.

“It’s really difficult because you don’t have a normal life,” Ms. Timmer said. “You’re trying to survive.”

To be sure, the shutdown has affected many people regardless of economic status, and similar disruptions abroad, like a London power outage that disrupted routines, show how widespread such challenges can be. The areas without power were as diverse as the wealthy suburbs of Silicon Valley, the old Gold Rush towns of the Sierra Nevada, the East Bay of San Francisco and the seaside city of Arcata.

Ms. Cahn’s cellphone ran out of power during the blackout and even when she managed to recharge it in her car cell service was spotty, as it was in many areas hit by the blackout.

Accustomed to staying warm at night with an electric blanket, Ms. Cahn slept under a stack of four blankets.

“I’m doing what I have to do which is not doing very much,” she said.

Further south in Marin City, Chanay Jackson stood surrounded by fumes from generators still powering parts of the city.

She said that food stamps were issued on the first of the month and that many residents who had to throw away food were out of luck.

“They’re not going to issue more food stamps just because the power went out,” Ms. Jackson said. “So they’re just screwed until next month.”

Strong winds have many times in the past caused power lines to come in contact with vegetation, igniting fires that are then propelled by the gusts, and hurricanes elsewhere have crippled infrastructure with Louisiana grid rebuild after Laura according to state officials. This was the case with the Camp Fire.

Since higher elevations had more extreme winds many of the neighborhoods where power was turned off this week were in hills and canyons, including in the Sierra Nevada.

The shut-off, which by one estimate affected a total of 2.5 million people, has come under strong criticism by residents and politicians, and warnings from Cal ISO about rolling blackouts as the power grid strained. The company’s website crashed just as customers sought information about the outage. Gov. Gavin Newsom called it unacceptable. But his comments were nuanced, criticizing the way the shut-off was handled, not the rationale for it. Mr. Newsom and others said the ravages of the Camp Fire demanded preventive action to prevent a reoccurrence.

Yet the calculus of trying to avoid deadly fires by shutting off power will continue to be debated as California enters its peak wildfire season, even as electricity reliability during COVID-19 was generally maintained for most consumers.

In the city of Grass Valley, Matthew Gottschalk said he and his wife realized that a generator was essential when they calculated that they had around $500 worth of food in their fridge.

“I don’t know what we would have done,” said Mr. Gottschalk, whose power went out Tuesday night.

His neighbors are filling coolers with ice. Everyone is hoping the power will come back on soon.

“Ice is going to run out and gas is going to run out,” he said.

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Site C Dam Injunction signals Ottawa's neutrality while B.C. reviews a hydroelectric dam project on the Peace River, amid First Nations treaty rights claims, federal approval defenses, and scrutiny of environmental assessment and Crown consultation.

Key Points

A legal request to pause Site C while courts weigh First Nations treaty rights, environmental review, and approvals.

✅ Ottawa neutral on injunction; still defends federal approvals

✅ First Nations cite treaty rights over Peace River territory

✅ B.C. jurisdiction, environmental assessment and Crown consultation at issue

The federal government is not going to argue against halting construction of the controversial Site C hydroelectric dam in British Columbia while a B.C. court decides if the project violates constitutionally protected treaty rights.

Work on Site C suspended prior to First Nations lawsuit

However a spokeswoman for Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said Monday the government will continue to defend the federal approval given for the project in December 2014, even though that approval was given using an environmental review process McKenna herself has said is fundamentally flawed.

The Site C project is an 1,100-megawatt dam and generating station on the Peace River in northern B.C. that will flood parts of the traditional territory of the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations.

#google#

In January, they filed a civil court case against the provincial government, B.C. Hydro and the federal government asking a judge to decide if their rights were being violated by the dam. A few weeks later, West Moberly asked the court for an injunction to halt construction pending the outcome of the rights case, similar to other contested transmission projects like the Maine electricity corridor debate in New England.

On May 11, lawyers for Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould filed a notice that Canada would remain neutral on the question of the injunction, meaning Canada won't argue against the idea of postponing construction for months, if not years, while the rights case winds through the court.

Wilson-Raybould has been silent on Site C since being named Canada's minister of justice in 2015, but in 2012, when she was the B.C. regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, she said the project was "running roughshod" over treaty rights. The Justice Department on Monday directed questions to Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Defence of environmental assessment

McKenna's spokeswoman, Caroline Theriault, said the injunction request is just a procedural step regarding construction and that it is B.C. jurisdiction not federal.

However, she said Canada will defend the environmental assessment and Crown consultation processes and the federally issued permits required for construction.

B.C. auditor general set to scrutinize Site C dam project

McKenna has legislation before the House of Commons to overhaul the process for environmental assessment of major projects like hydro dams and pipelines, arguing the former government's procedures had skewed too far towards proponents. The overhaul includes requiring traditional Indigenous knowledge be taken into account, a consideration also central to the Columbia River Treaty talks underway on both sides of the border.

However, Theriault said the commitment to overhaul the process also included a promise not to revisit projects that had already been approved, such as Site C.

"The federal environmental assessment process for the Site C project has already been upheld in other court actions," said Theriault.

'It feels kind of odd'

West Moberly Chief Roland Wilson said he was both excited and yet concerned by Canada's decision last week not to oppose the injunction.

"It feels kind of odd and makes me wonder what they're up to," Wilson said.

However he said all he has ever wanted was for the project to be stopped until the question of rights can be answered. Wilson said two previous dams on the Peace River already flooded 80 per cent of the functional land within West Moberly's territory and that Site C will flood half of what's left. That land is used for fishing and hunting and there is also concern the dam will allow mercury to leak into Moberly Lake, he said.

Retiree undaunted by steep odds against his petition to stop Site C dam

Construction began in 2015 and more than $2.4 billion has already been spent on a project that will at the earliest, not be completed until 2024 and will cost an estimated $10 billion total, with cost overrun risks underscored by the Muskrat Falls ratepayer agreement in Atlantic Canada.

The province continues to argue against the injunction and will also fight the rights case, even as Alberta suspends power purchase talks with B.C. over energy disputes. Premier John Horgan campaigned on a promise to review the Site C approval. A B.C. Utilities Commission report in November found there are alternatives to building it and that it will go over budget. Nevertheless Horgan in December said he had to let construction continue because cancelling the project would be too costly both for the province and its electricity consumers, despite the B.C. rate freeze announced around the same period.

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Sub-Saharan Africa Energy Access faces critical deficits; SDG7, clean energy finance, off-grid solar, and microgrids drive electrification for health, education, and economy amid World Bank and IEA efforts to expand reliable, affordable power.

Key Points

Reliable, affordable power in sub-Saharan Africa via renewables, off-grid solar, and SDG7-led electrification.

✅ SDG7 targets universal, modern energy access by 2030

✅ Off-grid solar and microgrids boost rural electrification

✅ Health, education, and business depend on reliable power

Sub-Saharan Africa has an electricity problem. While the world as a whole has made great strides when it comes to providing access to electricity and moving toward universal electricity access worldwide (the world average is now 90 per cent with access, up from 83 per cent in 2010), southern and western African states still lag far behind.

According to Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report, produced by a consortium of organisations including the World Bank, the International Energy Agency and the World Health Organization, 759 million people were without electricity in 2019 and threequarters of them were based in sub-Saharan Africa. At just seven per cent, South Sudan had the lowest access figures; Chad, Burundi and Malawi were only marginally higher. What’s more, due to a combination of factors, the situation is getting worse. In total, the region’s access deficit increased from 556 million people in 2010 to 570 million people in 2019.

These days, being without electricity has an impact on every sphere of life. The Covid-19 pandemic only served to put this into sharper relief. Intermittent electricity meant vaccination doses that rely on cold storage were impossible to deliver and, as more than 70 per cent of the health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa have no access to reliable electricity, the problem was vast. But even without a global pandemic, having no power stymies opportunity in every field, from education to economics.

French photojournalist Pascal Maitre, who has spent much of his career writing about sub-Saharan Africa, wanted to document the problems faced by people in areas with no electricity. He thought particularly carefully about the location for his project. ‘First, I was thinking I could take images in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,’ he says. ‘But then I thought that if you chose a place that has war, it’s logical that electricity won’t really work. So, instead, I wanted to find a place that is quite stable. I decided to go to Benin, where they have a democracy. It is a good example of a country that’s not in really bad shape but where they still have this problem. Also, I didn’t want to go to a place that is very remote, where it is normal not to have good service. So I decided to go to a place around 50 kilometres from the capital that you can get to by road.’

Maitre visited several villages in the region, as well as making trips to Chad and Senegal, and encountered the full range of limitations engendered by the power shortage. From teachers struggling to conduct lessons in the dark to midwives forced to work with only the weak light from a phone, the situation was clearly unacceptable. ‘People were very, very, very upset,’ he says. ‘I conducted a lot of interviews in different villages and lack of electricity touches education, economy, business, security and also emigration, because people have to move to big cities or maybe to Europe to get jobs.’

Where once the situation might have been accepted as the norm, people today are fully aware of the ways in which they are held back by the lack of power. As Maitre remembers: ‘A guy said to me one day, “Do you think it is normal that last time my wife delivered a baby, the midwife had to hold her phone between her teeth in order to see what she was doing?” You feel very frustrated.’ He adds that the fact that most people now have mobile phones only highlights the hardship. ‘Before, maybe it was not so frustrating. But now, most of these people have cellphones. The cellphone company puts antennae everywhere so the phones work, but people cannot recharge their phones. They have to go to the market, where someone will come with a generator to recharge.’

Governments and global organisations are very aware of the problem across the world as a whole. Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) – one of the 17 goals set out in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly – was designed to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy by 2030, underscoring the push for clean, affordable and sustainable electricity for all by 2030. As part of this goal, international financial flows to developing countries in support of clean energy reached US$17 billion in 2018. As a result, some areas have seen huge improvement. According to the Energy Progress Report, in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, the advance of electrification has been enough to approach universal access. By 2019, in Western Asia and North Africa, and Central and South Asia, 94 and 95 per cent of the population respectively had access to electricity.

But these statistics only serve to emphasise just how bad the situation is in sub-Saharan Africa, where electricity systems are unlikely to go green this decade according to several analyses. As the report states: ‘While renewable energy has demonstrated remarkable resilience during the pandemic, the unfortunate fact is that gains in energy access throughout Africa are being reversed: the number of people lacking access to electricity is set to increase in 2020, making basic electricity services unaffordable for up to 30 million people who had previously enjoyed access.’

The small silver lining is that if the situation is dealt with properly, the region could build a renewable-energy system from the ground up, rather than having to undergo the costly and complex transitions underway in developed countries. In rural areas, small-scale or off-grid renewable systems (mostly solar) are expected to play an important role, as highlighted by a recent IRENA report on decarbonisation, in increasing access. In fact, solar panels are already used in many areas. In 2019, 105 million people had access to off-grid solar solutions, up from 85 million in 2016, and almost half lived in sub-Saharan Africa, with 17 million in Kenya and eight million in Ethiopia.

Rachel Kyte is currently serving as the 14th dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University in the USA, but her CV is long. She was previously CEO of the UN-affiliated Sustainable Energy for All (SeforALL), as well as the World Bank Group vice president and special envoy for climate change, leading the run-up to the Paris Agreement. According to her, a focus on renewables is absolutely essential, both for wider efforts to tackle climate change, with some advocating a fossil fuel lockdown to drive a climate revolution, but also for the people of sub-Saharan Africa. ‘The fossil fuel industry has said it will just extend the centralised fossil-fuel power systems that we have today to reach these people,’ she says.

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