Africa’s ambition to create a continent-wide electricity market has moved another step from policy design toward implementation, with the African Union formalising a new technical oversight structure for the African Single Electricity Market.
The African Union Commission convened the inaugural meeting of AfSEM’s High-Level Technical Oversight Committee in Addis Ababa from 28–30 September, bringing together regional economic communities, power pools, regulators, development-finance institutions and other technical bodies.
The objective is electricity that can move across borders
AfSEM’s long-term logic is straightforward: African electricity systems are fragmented, while generation resources and demand are unevenly distributed. Stronger regional markets could allow countries with available generation to sell electricity across borders, improve system flexibility and support investment in larger generation projects.
But a continental market requires considerably more than transmission lines. Countries need compatible market rules, functioning utilities, regulatory coordination, trading and settlement systems, cross-border interconnections and institutions capable of managing increasingly integrated power systems.
New governance machinery
The September meeting adopted a governance and operational manual for the oversight committee and launched technical working groups intended to advance implementation. It also reviewed regulatory readiness, market coupling, transmission planning and lessons from European electricity-market integration.
The AU is not proposing simply to copy Europe’s model. Its own account of the process stresses the need to adapt lessons to Africa’s different institutional, regulatory and market conditions.
Regional power pools are the building blocks
A continental electricity market will emerge progressively through stronger regional markets. Existing power pools in Southern, Eastern, Western, Central and other parts of Africa provide the institutional foundations, but levels of infrastructure, trading activity and regulatory maturity vary considerably.
The oversight process therefore links AfSEM to the Continental Power System Masterplan and to regional interconnection programmes. The challenge is to ensure that market architecture develops alongside the physical transmission infrastructure required to move electricity.
Industrialisation depends on reliable power
The significance extends beyond the energy sector. Reliable and competitively priced electricity is a basic input for manufacturing, mining, digital infrastructure and services. Regional power trade can also help countries integrate larger shares of variable renewable generation by drawing on a wider system.
AfSEM is not yet a functioning single continental electricity market. The latest development is institutional: Africa is putting in place more of the governance and technical machinery required to build one. The harder work—interconnection, regulatory harmonisation, utility reform, investment mobilisation and actual cross-border trading—remains ahead.
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