(Bloomberg) -- Africa can significantly increase energy security by strengthening regional transmission grids to enable electricity trading, according to the head of a US government-led partnership focused on the continent.

Nations from Senegal to South Africa have pointed to the need for solutions to end energy poverty, with 600 million people in the region lacking access to electricity. Strengthening and expanding power lines is a key focus to increasing those connections, Richard Nelson, coordinator of Power Africa, said in an interview in Cape Town.

The group that provides assistance and coordinates efforts by US agencies to bolster electricity supply has supported the synchronization of a dozen national grids in West Africa and is looking at other regional networks. 

“If we can get these power pools functioning then really, that is what a modern energy network looks like,” he said. “It’s critical for the development of the continent to trade power.”

Efforts are starting in some regions to do that. The 12 national members of the Southern African Power Pool in March appointed Climate Fund Managers to manage a financing facility that targets $1.3 billion to improve energy transmission across borders. The unbundling underway of South Africa’s Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. is designed to allow the procurement of power across the region. 

African nations also face the challenge of state power companies that fail to provide reliable electricity supply and lack resources. “There continues to be almost no utility that is viable,” said Nelson. “They’re all underwater, they’re all being subsidized” and lack funds to build needed infrastructure, he said, without naming any specific firms.

Efforts by Power Africa helped with more than $1 billion in financing for electricity projects last year and almost $400 million for off-grid solutions, according to its annual report. 

“We’re trying to look for these spots of political will where we see a government that’s sort of opening up and is willing to actually take advice about changing laws, changing regulations,” Nelson said. 

Angola has become a rising example of that with two solar power plants by US developer Sun Africa supported by $900 million in financing by the US Export-Import Bank as well as work on a major transmission line, he said. “They’ve made such a turnabout over the last few years.”

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