AER Research Scope
AER organises its work across six primary themes and a set of cross-cutting research programmes that span multiple sectors.
Six Core Research Areas
Each theme covers a defined part of Africa's energy system. Research briefs are typically scoped at the country or sub-regional level within each theme.
Upstream & Gas Systems
- Exploration and production activity
- Gas reserves and reserve estimates
- Gas infrastructure: pipelines, processing, storage
- LNG and FLNG project development
- Flare gas monetisation and abatement
- Midstream and downstream gas value chains
Particular focus on the West African gas corridor, East African gas basin development, and natural gas as a transition fuel.
Power & Grids
- Installed generation capacity by country and fuel type
- Transmission and distribution infrastructure
- Grid reliability, outage frequency and duration
- Utility financial health and reform
- Regional power pools and cross-border trade
- Cost of electricity by country and segment
Coverage spans SAPP, WAPP, EAPP and CAPP interconnections as well as standalone national systems.
Renewables & Distributed Energy
- Utility-scale solar and wind deployment
- Mini-grid technology, business models and regulation
- Off-grid solar: household systems and productive use
- Hybrid systems combining renewables with fossil backup
- Storage: battery, pumped hydro and emerging technologies
- Renewable energy targets and policy frameworks
AER tracks both utility and distributed deployment, with attention to hybrid and off-grid models in underserved areas.
Energy Access & Social Outcomes
- Household electricity access rates by country and region
- Cooking fuel transitions: LPG, biomass, charcoal, ethanol
- Gendered dimensions of energy access and use
- Energy poverty metrics and measurement
- Productive use of energy in agriculture and commerce
- Health outcomes linked to indoor air quality and fuel use
Research in this theme is anchored in household-level data and is explicitly attentive to distributional outcomes.
Emissions & Environmental Impact
- Methane emissions from oil and gas operations
- Gas flaring: volumes, locations, trends and abatement options
- Carbon accounting and emissions reporting
- Climate risk to energy infrastructure
- Environmental governance and regulation
- National climate targets and energy sector alignment
AER does not take a position on the pace of transition. Research documents emissions, risks and stated policy goals.
Policy, Economics & Finance
- Regulatory frameworks: petroleum, electricity and gas law
- Energy pricing, tariffs and subsidies
- Investment flows: FDI, DFI and domestic capital in energy
- Project financing structures and bankability
- Fiscal regimes: royalties, taxes, PSCs and production terms
- Energy transition finance: carbon markets, green bonds
This theme underpins all others and is often integrated with sector-specific research rather than treated in isolation.
Cross-Cutting Programmes
Certain research questions cut across multiple themes and are treated as standing programmes rather than one-off briefs.
Structured profiles of individual countries covering generation mix, access rates, key legislation, upstream activity and investment outlook.
Compilation and quality-checking of publicly available African energy datasets — production, capacity, access, prices, emissions — into consistent series.
Year-on-year tracking of key energy indicators across selected African countries, with commentary on notable changes.
Monitoring of key legislative and regulatory developments in Africa's energy sector across petroleum, electricity and environmental law.
What AER Does Not Do
AER does not produce policy advocacy documents, corporate due diligence, investment advice or paid consulting reports. It does not take institutional positions on whether and how fast Africa should transition away from fossil fuels. That is a political question and AER documents what the evidence shows without determining what governments and companies should do with that evidence.
Research outputs do not constitute legal, financial or technical advice. AER is explicit about data limitations and methodological constraints in every output it publishes.
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