Abstract:

Bioenergy is a source of clean, renewable energy and is seen as a promising endeavor
in mitigating and abating climate change. Its use brings various social, environmental
and economic benefits and particularly for Africa, bioenergy offers opportunities to
improve energy security and reduce dependence on foreign exchange earnings, which
would bring Africa’s poor closer to a secure energy future. A predominant source of
bioenergy supply is in the form of specific bioenergy crops, of which sugarcane,
sweet sorghum and maize are examples. This study focused on the cultivation of
sugarcane for bioenergy purposes and aimed to delimit areas suitable for cane
cultivation in Angola. Sugarcane was selected as the bioenergy feedstock due to its
variety of by-products which includes bioethanol for gasoline blending and bagasse
for electricity cogeneration. Due to its high agricultural productivity, sugarcane was
the favoured bioenergy feedstock. Angola was selected as the study area due to its
large areas of non-forest agricultural land which affords significant capacity for
bioenergy production.