The sunbaked deserts and wind-swept coasts of North Africa hold immense potential to power not just the region itself but also much of Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. This renewable energy potential offers a blueprint for energy resilience in an era of climate disruption. However, despite individual countries making strides in adopting renewable energy, collective progress in the region is hindered by political discord, fragmentation, and infrastructural isolation.
North Africa’s transition to clean energy is driven by existential threats such as water scarcity, agricultural collapse, and volatile commodity markets. The region’s energy demand is rising rapidly, putting pressure on both hydrocarbon-importing and exporting states to balance their energy needs with ambitious decarbonization goals. While renewables account for 40 percent of installed capacity in the region, their contribution to the overall energy mix remains less than 5 percent due to systemic inefficiencies like solar farms generating power far from population centers and a lack of transmission links for wind projects.
To address these challenges, closer regional integration is essential. A regional electricity market could help balance supply and demand across countries, lower costs, attract foreign investment, and increase resilience against external shocks. Technical solutions like harmonized grid codes, cross-border auctions for renewable projects, and joint ventures in green hydrogen production exist but require political will to overcome historical grievances and foster cooperation.
Europe has a vested interest in supporting regional integration in North Africa to achieve its decarbonization and energy diversification goals. The “green dividend” from such integration could extend to Sub-Saharan Africa, addressing underlying drivers of migration. By reframing renewables as a neutral domain insulated from broader tensions, North Africa can become a renewable energy hub, leveraging its complementary resources and geographic proximity.
The region’s chronic fragmentation stems from historical grievances, clashing economic ideologies, and infrastructural neglect. Physical disconnects like incomplete highways and isolated electricity grids mirror institutional barriers like tariff regimes favoring external partners and subsidies for fossil fuels distorting incentives for green investment. The costs of fragmentation are rising as global demand for green hydrogen and critical minerals grows, threatening North Africa’s competitive advantage.
Renewables offer North Africa a unique opportunity to decouple electricity cooperation from geopolitical rivalries. Existing cross-border grid infrastructure provides a technical foundation for cooperation, which could pivot from hydrocarbon dependence to renewables as countries expand their solar and wind capacities. Challenges like fragmented power grids, incompatible regulations, and chronic underinvestment can be addressed through phased approaches and incremental trust-building measures.
Achieving functional interconnectivity, accelerating innovation through knowledge-sharing platforms, and fostering sector-specific diplomacy are key to realizing the region’s renewable energy potential. By embracing interconnectivity as a strategic imperative, North African governments can transform energy from a source of division into a catalyst for shared resilience. The window of opportunity is narrow, but the rewards of energy security, climate adaptation, and economic convergence are profound.
In a region long defined by its fractures, cooperation is not idealism—it is simple arithmetic.
