Adding more generation does not automatically mean adding more usable electricity.
A country can commission gas-fired plants, utility-scale solar projects and battery storage while businesses and households continue to experience unreliable supply. The constraint may not be generation itself, but the infrastructure required to move electricity from where it is produced to where demand exists.
Gas can provide dispatchable generation, solar can add capacity relatively quickly, and storage can shift electricity between periods of high and low demand. But these resources interact differently with the network.
The question is therefore not simply how much electricity can be generated. It is whether the system can move, balance and deliver that electricity when it creates the most value.
The Grid Becomes the Constraint
Generation and transmission are different infrastructure projects with different development cycles.
A power plant can often be delivered against a defined construction schedule, while transmission projects require planning, permitting, procurement and construction across longer and more complex timelines. The IEA estimates that planning, permitting and completing new grid infrastructure can take five to 15 years, compared with roughly one to five years for new renewable projects.
The consequences are already visible. In 2024, the IEA tracked 1,650 GW of solar and wind projects in advanced stages of development awaiting grid connections. The figure illustrates how generation can progress faster than the networks needed to connect it.
West Africa provides a different example of the same underlying problem. More than 4,000 kilometres of high-voltage transmission lines now connect the electricity grids of 15 West African countries through the West African Power Pool, enabling utilities to trade electricity across borders. Around 8% of regional electricity is now traded, helping lower costs and improve supply reliability.
The lesson is straightforward: generation capacity has limited value when the network cannot carry electricity to the market that needs it.
Not All Generation Capacity Has the Same Value
The changing generation mix makes the problem more complicated.
A megawatt of solar produced during a period of low demand is not equivalent to a megawatt of dispatchable generation available during a peak. Likewise, a battery located near a constrained load centre can provide a different system benefit from the same battery capacity elsewhere.
Storage can address a timing problem, but it cannot replace a transmission corridor that is needed to move electricity across regions. Gas can provide dependable generation, but that power still depends on the network beyond the plant.
Location, timing and flexibility therefore matter alongside installed capacity.
This is particularly relevant as solar investment expands across Africa. The IEA says solar PV now represents the least-cost source of power in many African countries, while private-sector clean-energy investment has risen from around $17 billion in 2019 to almost $40 billion in 2024. Yet the continent continues to face major gaps in electricity access and energy infrastructure.
The issue is not choosing one generation technology over another. It is designing a system in which generation, networks and flexibility work together to meet demand.
The Grid Is an Execution Problem Too
Closing that gap requires more than generation investment. It requires physical infrastructure to be delivered.
Transmission expansion depends on transformers, cables, switchgear, substations, towers and control equipment. Those components have to be specified, manufactured, procured, transported and installed before a network upgrade can deliver additional capacity.
That supply chain is under pressure. An IEA survey found that procurement now takes two to three years for cables and up to four years for large power transformers, roughly twice as long as in 2021. Cable costs have nearly doubled since 2019, while power transformer prices have risen by around 75%.
For projects operating around existing infrastructure, the execution challenge can be greater. Installation may have to take place around live systems, planned outages and commissioning windows, requiring careful sequencing of equipment, technical teams and logistics.
This is where procurement, project management, technical support, equipment solutions and specialist manpower become part of the infrastructure delivery equation. Sealandair Group operates within this environment, supporting energy and marine projects across these areas.
The practical question is not only whether a transmission project has been financed or approved, but whether the equipment, people and services required to deliver it can be mobilised in time.
Building Around Demand
The economic value of additional generation ultimately depends on what happens after the electricity is produced.
Industrial facilities, mines, manufacturing plants, processing operations and data infrastructure require dependable power at the locations where investment is taking place. A system can therefore have growing generation capacity while still failing to provide the reliability required for productive activity.
This makes transmission more than a supporting component of generation. It determines how effectively power resources can be shared across regions, how much variable generation can be integrated, and whether new industrial demand can be served without relying on expensive or temporary alternatives.
West Africa’s regional interconnections demonstrate this economic value. The World Bank reports that projects such as the OMVG and CLSG interconnections have enabled countries to access lower-cost electricity from neighbouring markets, reducing reliance on more expensive generation. Through the OMVG interconnection, Guinea-Bissau gained access to imported hydropower from Guinea, allowing it to move away from power generation based entirely on expensive heavy fuel oil. The CLSG network has also reduced generation costs in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The implication is broader than regional power trading. A stronger network allows electricity to be produced where resources are available and consumed where economic demand exists. It can reduce the need to build duplicate generation capacity, improve system flexibility and make new investment more viable.
The next phase of power investment therefore has to look beyond the number of megawatts being added. It has to consider where generation is located, how its output changes, what flexibility is available, and whether the network can carry that electricity to productive demand.
Power generation is not necessarily growing too quickly. In many markets, the supporting infrastructure is struggling to keep pace.
The defining measure of progress may therefore be less about how much power a system can produce and more about how much reliable electricity it can put to work.