The study, conducted by Marzouqa Lamsaf and Mariem Liouaeddine of the Laboratory of Economic and Public Policy Sciences at Ibn Tofail University in Kénitra, Morocco, takes an unusual approach to a sprawling subject. Rather than analyzing energy systems directly, the researchers analyzed the scientific literature itself. They examined 107 documents indexed in the Scopus database, all published between 2010 and 2025, that address Africa’s renewable energy transition. Using two widely adopted bibliometric software packages, VOSviewer and Bibliometrix, they mapped publication trends, identified the most influential works, charted the scientific actors and collaboration networks, and reconstructed the keyword structures that reveal how researchers have framed the problem over fifteen years.

Bibliometric analysis of this kind works by treating publications, citations, and keywords as data points that can be clustered and visualized. When researchers repeatedly cite the same papers or use the same terms, those items group together in network maps, revealing the intellectual architecture of a field. In this case, the analysis surfaced four dominant research clusters. The first, labeled Technological Decarbonization and Energy Systems, covers the engineering and systems-level questions of deploying solar, wind, hydropower, and other renewable technologies across African grids. The second, Green Finance and Economic Development, addresses the capital flows, investment frameworks, and growth strategies needed to fund the transition. The third, Energy Access, Poverty and Security, focuses on the social dimension: who gets electricity, at what cost, and with what reliability. The fourth cluster, Emissions, Efficiency and Socioeconomic Co-benefits, examines how decarbonization policies interact with health, employment, and broader welfare outcomes.

What makes the review’s findings striking is not the existence of these four clusters but the way they interlock. The authors emphasize that the clusters do not represent isolated scholarly silos. Over the study period, the literature has increasingly converged on a trilemma framing, in which economic development, energy access, and decarbonization are treated as jointly necessary and mutually constraining objectives. A solar mini-grid that lifts a rural community out of energy poverty but remains financially unsustainable fails on one axis. A utility-scale wind farm that attracts foreign investment but displaces local communities fails on another. A coal plant that delivers cheap power and industrial growth fails on the climate axis. The research community, the review suggests, has progressively recognized that no single-axis solution will work for a continent with Africa’s specific emissions profile, development needs, and vulnerability to climate impacts.

The asymmetry at the heart of this debate is worth spelling out. Africa’s cumulative and annual contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions are small by any measure, which means the continent’s decarbonization efforts have limited direct effect on global climate trajectories. Yet the stakes of the transition for Africans themselves are enormous. Energy access deficits remain deep, and the continent’s population is growing rapidly, which means electricity demand is set to expand substantially in the coming decades. The path that demand growth takes—whether it is met with renewable capacity, fossil fuels, or some mixture—will shape both African development prospects and the global emissions picture for generations. This is why the review insists that Africa’s transition cannot be read purely as a decarbonization agenda; questions of affordability, reliability, and industrial development are inseparable from it.

The temporal scope of the analysis, 2010 to 2025, captures a period of dramatic change in both the global energy landscape and African energy policy. Over these fifteen years, the cost of solar photovoltaic technology fell dramatically worldwide, off-grid and mini-grid solutions matured, and international climate finance mechanisms expanded. The publication trends identified in the review reflect this evolution, with scholarly attention intensifying as the practical possibilities of renewable deployment in Africa grew. The mapping of influential works and collaboration patterns also reveals which institutions, regions, and research communities have driven the conversation, and where the networks of co-authorship and citation remain thin—a signal of where research capacity and international collaboration may need strengthening.

Beyond mapping the existing literature, the review devotes significant attention to what the literature has missed. The authors identify several persistent gaps. First, the measurement of energy access and renewable energy themselves remains inconsistent across studies, making it difficult to compare findings or aggregate evidence. Different papers use different indicators, thresholds, and data sources for what counts as adequate access or meaningful renewable penetration. Second, financing and governance constraints—the political economy reasons why capital does not flow to promising projects, or why regulatory frameworks fail—are treated unevenly in the literature, often as background context rather than objects of rigorous analysis. Third, the methodological toolkit of the field leans heavily on approaches that identify correlations rather than causal effects, leaving open questions about what actually drives successful transitions.

The fourth gap is perhaps the most consequential for policy. The review finds that energy justice, gender, and digital inclusion remain poorly integrated into transition research. Energy justice as a framework asks who benefits and who bears the burdens of energy systems, and it has gained traction in European and North American scholarship but has been slower to penetrate African energy studies. Gender dimensions matter because women are disproportionately affected by lack of access to clean cooking and because energy entrepreneurship and employment are not gender-neutral. Digital inclusion connects the energy transition to the broader digital economy, since modern energy services increasingly underpin connectivity, education, and financial technology. A transition literature that ignores these dimensions risks producing policies that expand electricity supply while reproducing or deepening existing inequalities.

For researchers, the review functions as both a map and a research agenda. By consolidating fifteen years of scholarship into identifiable clusters and gaps, it gives newcomers an entry point into a fragmented field and signals to funders and journals where new work is most needed. The call for stronger causal methods is particularly pointed: as African governments and international institutions commit to renewable targets, the evidence base for which interventions actually deliver affordable, reliable, low-carbon energy at scale remains thinner than the urgency of the problem demands. Better measurement, more attention to governance and finance, and explicit incorporation of justice and inclusion concerns would, the authors suggest, make the next fifteen years of scholarship far more useful to decision-makers.

The broader significance of the study lies in its reframing. For much of the past decade, international climate discourse has treated Africa primarily as a victim of climate change or as a future emissions problem to be managed. The trilemma framing that this review documents in the literature offers a more accurate and more demanding picture: Africa’s energy transition is simultaneously a development project, an access project, and a decarbonization project, and the scholarly community has increasingly organized itself around that reality. Whether the continent can navigate all three objectives at once will depend not only on technology and capital but on the quality of the evidence guiding policy—a quality that this review suggests still has considerable room to improve. As the literature continues to grow, the challenge will be ensuring that research keeps pace with the real-world decisions being made today about grids, investments, and the lives of the more than half a billion Africans still waiting for modern energy.

Subject of Research: Bibliometric review of research on Africa's renewable energy transition, energy access, and decarbonization

Article Title: Reconciling economic development, energy access, and decarbonization in Africa’s renewable energy transition: a bibliometric review

Article References: Lamsaf, M., & Liouaeddine, M. (2026). Reconciling economic development, energy access, and decarbonization in Africa’s renewable energy transition: a bibliometric review. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04805-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04805-2

Keywords: renewable energy transition, Africa, energy access, decarbonization, economic development, bibliometric analysis, green finance, energy security, energy justice, energy poverty, Scopus, VOSviewer