Most of the population of Southern African lacks access to electricity and modern energy for cooking (FAO, 2012c; IEA, 2014a). Their heavy dependence on the traditional biomass for cooking direct affect the living conditions in this region. For example, charcoal and firewood supply more than 95% of the cooking energy consumption in Mozambique and Malawi. By contrast, in South Africa, only 13% of the population relies on the traditional use of biomass (IEA, 2014b). The use of charcoal and firewood has been related to approximately 600,000 premature death per year in Africa (WHO, 2013). The stoves are typically inefficient and placed in poorly ventilated spaces, causing indoor air pollution (IEA, 2014a). Also, the use of these traditional biomass leads to household energy accidents, such as burns, scalds, fires, and poisonings (Kimemia et al., 2014).

Electricity access is lacking for 60% of the Southern African population. In Malawi, less than 10% of the population is supplied with electricity (IEA, 2014b). In some cases, countries are highly dependent on imported electricity. For example, 70% of the electricity in Swaziland is imported. Also, all of the Southern African countries are net importers of gasoline and distillate fuel oil (EIA, 2012) (Table 1), with all except South Africa and Zambia wholly dependent on imports. This scenario reduces their energy security and harms the national trade balance.

Although the Southern Africa economy is changing rapidly, with annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5.7% from 2000 to 2012, attracting investments and opening up new opportunities (IEA, 2014a; Taliotis et al., 2016), the region must expand its population’s access to modern, reliable, and affordable energy and improve the social indicators to maintain and consolidate the economic expansion observed during the last decade.

In regions with sufficient land resources, bioenergy can play this role, promoting energy access and rural development integrated with an improved food security and greater national energy sovereignty (Lynd and Woods, 2011). In terms of physical geography, much of Africa has the capacity to produce bioenergy crops without compromising biodiversity and water use (Lynd and Woods, 2011).

Sugarcane is one of the best feedstocks for bioenergy because of its semiperennial productive cycle, which involves replanting at intervals of 5 years or more (De Cerqueira Leite et al., 2009), and its efficient conversion of solar radiation into chemical energy (Zhu et al., 2010). Sugarcane bioenergy can be cost competitive, promote human development, and comply with strict sustainability indicators, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by approximately 80% compared to gasoline (Seabra et al., 2011). Moreover, sugarcane can address the triple challenge of energy insecurity, climate change, and rural poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (Johnson and Seebaluck, 2012).

Approximately 40 million t of sugarcane are produced in Southern Africa, mainly in South Africa, Swaziland, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique (FAO, 2012d). Despite the existence of suitable areas for sugarcane cultivation in African countries, the overall potential of the countries is different and depend on particular agricultural and economic issues. The Southeast region has the largest potential for rain-fed sugarcane production, with additional potential to grow this crop using irrigation (Hermann et al., 2014).

However, most of the studies about the potential of the biomass as renewable energy in Africa address only the geographic suitability of renewable energy sources (Watson, 2011; FAO, 2012b) or a general overview about the potential energy supply (IRENA-DBFZ, 2013). There is a lack of studies that quantify how much is the ability to replace the current and future uses of traditional biomass and fossil fuels or even enlarge the electricity access according to the current and projected demand. This intriguing question motivated this study.

By considering two scenarios to produce modern energy from sugarcane in Southern Africa, this study explores the potential of this crop to promote a cleaner and more accessible energy, including the required investment and GHG emissions savings. We assume that sugarcane ethanol will be used as a vehicle fuel and partially replace the traditional use of solid biomass for cooking, thereby contributing to reducing the deforestation associated with burning firewood and charcoal. We also evaluate the potential of cogenerating bioelectricity from bagasse. A probabilistic methodology is applied to nine Southern African countries: Angola, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Other countries in Southern Africa (Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Namibia, and Seychelles) are excluded because of a lack of data or inadequate conditions for sugarcane production.

As the real potential of biomass in Africa is still not accurate—studies report an enormous range of suitable area for biomass production (IRENA-DBFZ, 2013), we assumed the use of only 1% of the pasture area, which the equivalent area is realistic in terms of suitable land (Watson, 2011; FAO, 2012b; Johnson and Seebaluck, 2012) (Table 2). Pasture lands are usually underutilized, and by using appropriated pasture management integrated with sustainable intensification practices, such as rotational grazing, incorporation of legumes and integrated crop–livestock–forestry systems, is possible to increase agricultural output (Latawiec et al., 2014) without compromising the grazing activity.

Ethanol is produced by the fermentation of a mash prepared from molasses (residual sugars from sugar production) or sugarcane juice and distillation, resulting in hydrous ethanol (containing approximately 6% water) or anhydrous ethanol. Pure hydrous ethanol can be used in dedicated or flex-fuel engines, which allow the use of any ethanol-gasoline blend, and as a diesel replacement in modified diesel engines (Nylund et al., 2013). Gasoline containing up to 10% anhydrous ethanol can be used in conventional gasoline vehicles without any modification, and higher blending levels (up to 30%) can be used after relatively simple changes (BNDES/CGEE, 2008). Processing sugarcane to produce either ethanol or sugar results in lignocellulosic residue, corresponding to approximately 27% (dry basis) of cane stalks (Rodrigues Filho, 2005). Bagasse is typically burned to produce power and heat for industrial needs and, increasingly, to generate surplus bioelectricity for the grid (Seabra and Macedo, 2011). In Brazil, sugarcane represents a relevant primary electricity source: for example, the power-generation capacity of sugarcane bagasse is 10,500 MW, corresponding to 7.5% of the total installed capacity (ANEEL Fontes de Energia: Biomassa, 2015).

More than 30 countries worldwide have ethanol-blending mandates motivated by various factors, including energy security, rural economic development, and GHG emission reduction (Munyinda et al., 2012; REN21, 2015a). Global ethanol production reached 94 Mm³ in 2014 and was mainly based on sugarcane, corn, and cassava. Biofuels, including biodiesel, represent less than 5% of the global road transport fuel demand on an energy basis (REN21, 2014).

Several initiatives aimed at introducing sugarcane bioenergy in Southern Africa, including various concepts and scales of operation, have been attempted. In 1982, Malawi adopted E10 blending using biofuel locally produced from sugarcane molasses. By 2004, the total production capacity reached 36 million liters per year (Chakaniza, 2013), allowing for E20 blending and the use of pure hydrous ethanol. In 2012, the CleanStar project was launched in Mozambique to promote a transition away from nontraditional biomass and inefficient stoves by disseminating up to 30,000 clean-burning and efficient cooking stoves fueled with locally produced ethanol (UNFCCC, 2013). The project target was to produce 2 million liters per year of ethanol from cassava as cooking fuel, supplied by local small farmers (Novozymes, 2012). However, the progress was impaired by feedstock supply and failed to achieve the required sales to sustain the manufacturing flow, leading to the end of the project in 2014 (REN21, 2015b). Challenges also included overcoming economic and cultural barriers (Dasappa, 2011).

In Angola, the BIOCOM Enterprise was created to diversify the economy by activating the sugarcane agroindustry and generating jobs and income. This project is a joint venture involving Angolan and Brazilian investors (worth US$ 750 million) and relies strongly on technology transferred from the Brazilian sugarcane agroindustry model. The commercial operation of the facility started in June 2015 (Macauhub, 2015). When fully implemented (planned for 2019/2020), 42,000 ha of sugarcane will annually produce 30 million liters of anhydrous ethanol, 235 GWh of surplus bioelectricity, and 260,000 t of sugar (Biocom, 2015), which is sufficient to supply at least 50% of the domestic demand for sugar (FAO, 2013a). Currently, most sugar consumed in Angola is imported (FAO, 2013a).

By using energy demand data (Table 1) and applying some assumptions to project a future scenario for 2030 (see Energy Demand Projection), we evaluated the potential of sugarcane to provide cleaner and more accessible energy in Southern Africa by considering two scenarios: Current Molasses (CM) and New Policies (NP). CM represents a short-term framework, in which ethanol is produced exclusively from molasses, considering the existing sugarcane production and the current technology access. NP refers to an enhanced approach likely to be deployed over the medium to long term based on the 2030 scenario proposed by the International Energy Agency (IEA, 2014a); in this case, sugarcane is cultivated over 1% of the pasture land, and ethanol is produced from molasses (existing sugarcane mills) and direct juice (additional sugarcane mills). We assessed the use of ethanol as cooking fuel and a displacer of fossil fuels, including gasoline and diesel. The use of ethanol in diesel engines is supported by the Scania technology, which allows the use of pure ethanol with 5% ignition improver in diesel engines [BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport project (EHA, 2011)]. Ethanol for cooking is likely to replace fuelwood because the latter is the main energy resource used as cooking fuel in Southern Africa (greater than 90%), except in South Africa, where electricity is the primary cooking fuel for approximately 60% of households (Adkins et al., 2012; IEA, 2014a).

Both scenarios correspond to a mill-crushing capacity of one million t of sugarcane and distillery consumption of 30 kWh/t cane (mechanical and electrical energy) (Dias et al., 2011). Further assumptions include the following:

CM Scenario: Ethanol is produced exclusively from existing molasses, and no additional sugarcane production occurs. We assumed a low efficiency for the cogeneration system, with the ability to generate 60 kWh/t cane (42 bar, 450°C) (BNDES/CGEE, 2008). We consider that all the existing sugarcane industries will be able to deploy such as system, if it does not exist already.

We evaluated the potential of sugarcane to provide cleaner and more accessible energy in Southern Africa by considering a short-term framework, named CM scenario, and an enhanced approach likely to be deployed over the medium to long term, entitled NP scenario. Results show the potential of energy supply, the GHG emissions savings, and the total investment required to enlarge the sugarcane production, with further discussion on challenges for implementing bioenergy systems in Africa.

Despite the potential of energy production using sugarcane, Southern Africa countries face a number of economic, social, and environmental challenges that can hamper the development of bioenergy systems. Among them are the need of adequate logistics infrastructure and the limited number of trained professionals, which reduces productivity. The situation is further aggravated by land acquisition schemes, in which the legal procedures make the investment processes quite difficult, by corruption, abuse of human rights and lack of governance transparency, which compromises the assurance of energy programs (Mwakasonda and Farioli, 2012), and by the access to affordable loans and sound business models (Rutz and Janssen, 2012).

Hence, policies must take the people’s welfare and the sustainable supply as first priorities through implementing and integrating effective plans for land use, energy, agriculture, and rural development focused on employment opportunities, education, and energy security. However, policies must be aligned with strategies to limit negative impacts of biofuels by promoting and applying sustainability standards and criteria based on aspects such as biodiversity, GHG emissions, land use, and water use. Furthermore, Africa is predicted to experience designed to undergo the adverse effects of the climate change on the agriculture systems, such as land degradation, water stress, increased occurrence of pests, droughts and floods, and loss of yield, which require adequate strategies to address such impacts, besides developing more accurate researches in this region to ensure the real effects of climate change (Malaviya and Ravindranath, 2012). Cooperation among African countries could boost the development of regional strategies and technologies suitable for their reality.

Under planning and monitoring actions, bioenergy can enhance agricultural and technological progress, boost social growth, and contribute to the development of the food sector and well-being of Africans at the local level. These results require efficient enterprises, financial mechanisms, and government support for research, education, and agriculture, such as extension services to guide farmers. International agreements, such as carbon emission reduction policies, can play an important role in promoting modern energy in developing countries.

Sugarcane can serve as a core bioenergy source for the growing energy demands of African countries and help to reduce GHG emissions and fossil fuel imports by changing their current energy generation profiles. However, displacing the use of fossil fuels and nonsustainable bioenergy requires new perspectives and solutions throughout the energy life cycle to ensure modern energy access. Additionally, implementing the scenarios proposed in this study are associated with improvements in biomass production, conversion technology, rural infrastructure, and societal integration (Lynd and Woods, 2011), especially for the NP scenario, which relies on more efficient technologies.

This study confirms the great potential for sugarcane ethanol production, the good prospects for using this biofuel in cooking stoves and transport sector in Southern Africa, and the opportunity for this sector to contribute to enhancing electricity access in the long term. As consequence of promoting the sugarcane sector for energy proposal, there are benefits regarding the reduction in fossil fuel consumption and the external dependency in fossil fuels imports, as well as reducing the GHG emission, in line with the voluntary national pledges assumed in COP21.

The development of sugarcane bioenergy is aligned with the goals proposed by the United Nations at the Sustainability Energy for All Program (SE4ALL): universal energy access, renewable energy, and energy efficiency. We believe that this study can help decision-makers and stakeholders on planning energy strategies in Southern Africa based on sugarcane as alternative to promote the modern energy supply. However, challenges such as financing the agroindustry, transport infrastructure, education and personnel training, and regulatory adjustment must be properly evaluated and solved, and a clear and effective government commitment is essential to make the sustainable sugarcane bioenergy a reality in Southern Africa.

SS was the primary author of the manuscript, performed the research, collected the data, analyzed the results, applied the uncertainty analysis, and elaborated the tables and charts. LN was the leader of the paper and an active coauthor, contributed in elaborating the scope, charts, and tables, and also played an important role in analyzing and discussing the results. HW contributed to the land use data and provided a deeper analysis and perspective of the sugarcane development in Southern Africa. LL played an important role in editing the manuscript and defining the scope of the study and also performed a deep analysis of the results. ME provided perspectives on bioenergy deployment in Southern Africa, especially the challenges for implementing sugarcane sector in this region. LC is the leader of the research project and was involved in the discussion of scope and results.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.