Urbanisation, Electricity Access, and the Clean Energy Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Distinguishing the Access and Composition Margins

Abstract

Purpose. Sub-Saharan Africa is urbanising faster than any other world region while remaining the least electrified, yet whether urbanisation accelerates or impedes the clean-energy transition remains unresolved. This paper distinguishes the access margin of the transition (electricity access) from the composition margin (the renewable content of supply), a distinction largely overlooked in the literature, and tests whether urbanisation's effect on fossil dependence is contingent on income. Methodology. Using an annual panel of 48 Sub-Saharan African countries over 2000–2021, and to address non-stationarity, cross-sectional dependence, and heterogeneous dynamics, the analysis combines fixed-effects models with Driscoll–Kraay inference, system GMM, a pooled mean group error-correction estimator, mediation analysis, and threshold models. Findings. Three results emerge. First, urbanisation robustly increases electricity access, with a stable long-run equilibrium relationship. Second, greater access does not translate into a higher renewable-electricity share, and mediation analysis finds no indirect pathway from urbanisation to renewables through access. Third, urbanisation's association with fossil dependence is income-contingent as it raises the fossil share across most of the region's income range as households move from biomass into commercial fossil energy, weakening as income rises and turning negative only near US$8,000 per capita, a level reached by fewer than one country-year in fifteen. Across countries, income rather than urbanisation is the master variable. Recommendations. Electrification and decarbonisation are distinct dimensions that should not be assumed to progress together. Electrification strategies should embed renewable generation at the point of connection by prioritising decentralised solar and mini-grids and monitoring should track the renewable-electricity share rather than the biomass-inflated aggregate, so that Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 11 advance together.