Crops production and the contribution of agricultural biomass power generation to Africa's clean energy transition: Analysis of trends from 1990 to 2021

When it comes to biomass production from agricultural residues, Africa is playing a vital role due to the reliance of many countries within the continent on agriculture as the main Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contributor. Africa has the opportunity to leverage residues from its high agricultural production to bridge the electricity access deficit. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze the trend in crop production, and the contribution of crop residues for clean power generation in Africa from 1990 to 2021, using data from existing literature, as well as Food and Agriculture Organization Statistics (FAOSTAT)| and International Energy Agency (IEA) online database. The analysis showed that yam, plantain, cassava, sorghum, and millet production are concentrated in Africa, accounting for 97 %, 64 %, 63 %, 49 %, and 48 % of global production, respectively. Analyzing the trend in bioelectricity generation indicates that, biopower production in Africa only increased significantly between 1990 and 2006 followed by a steep decrease from 2006 to 2007 due to policy and technical failure. It was found that the highest contribution of bioelectricity in electric energy consumption is related to the year 2006 (0.41 %). This peak contribution dropped to 0.28 % in 2020. With the increasing trend in crop production in Africa and the decrease in bioelectricity generation and consumption, it is concluded that crop residue production alone cannot be a good measure of biomass potential for bioelectricity generation as reported in many studies without looking at other driving factors. Therefore, the study has proposed factors for increasing bioelectricity generation in Africa.