Africa will need more than $700 billion in funding over the next decade to develop mines for renewable energy, metals needed for the green energy transition, according to Standard Bank Group, Bloomberg reports.
Kenny Fihla, chief executive of Standard Bank's corporate and investment banking division, said the continent's financial institutions would not be able to provide even half of the capital and most would need to come from investors elsewhere.
"Many of the minerals needed to make solar panels, lithium batteries, wind turbines and so on are found in sub-Saharan Africa," Fihla said. "Our team has also quantified the amount of investment needed in this area, which is in the hundreds of billions of dollars."
African governments are under pressure to provide electricity supplies to the 600m people - about half the continent's population - who currently have no access to electricity.
Meanwhile, copper and cobalt deposits in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, lithium reserves in Zimbabwe and platinum and manganese deposits in South Africa are seen as key to supplying materials needed for everything from solar panels to batteries for electric cars.
"The financial resources that the banking sector in sub-Saharan Africa has will not be sufficient for us to fully support these initiatives," Fihla said. Much of that money will come from international investors who want to develop in the renewable energy sector or play a role in the renewable energy sector or in the extraction of key minerals."
In South Africa alone, Standard Bank lending to renewable energy projects could reach a "ceiling" of 250 billion rand ($13 billion) to 300 billion rand by 2026, Fihla said.
