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Abstract Energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains a challenging issue at the midway point to the United Nations' development goals. From the perspective of energy efficiency and diversification of power-generation sources, this paper investigates the capacity of the wood-processing industry to contribute to the decentralised power generation by performing a techno-economic analysis of the use of wood residues for cogeneration. Using a survey performed in Cameroon as a case study, a biomass-fuelled cogeneration scheme and a model analysing its viability are proposed for the specific context of SSA. A sensitivity analysis indicates for a given process efficiency of the industry, the attractiveness of cogeneration as the processing capacity and feed-in tariffs of electricity increase. More specifically, the threshold of feed-in tariffs ensuring the economic viability of CHP in the sub-region is estimated at $0.15 per kWh for mills where the output capacities of sawn timber products are of 5000 cubic metre per annum and more. The power-generation potential from the primary processing of timbers in the sub-region is about 388 kWh per cubic metre of sawn wood, while the energy intensity of the sawing process is estimated at 132 kWh per cubic metre. Therefore, the industry can generate up to 2472 GWh of electricity in the three sub-regions of East, West and Central Africa if a total of US$ 2.5 billion is invested, allowing a substantial increase of 1% of the current electricity-generation capacity for the geographic location which has the most important forestry resources on the continent. Highlights • Wood-processing residues can contribute significantly to the distributed power generation in African forestry regions. • Energy patterns and the biomass feedstocks from wood-processing industries in Sub-Saharan Africa is comprehensively analysed. • The condensing-extraction steam turbine appears to be the most suitable technology for wood-fired CHP in Sub-Saharan Africa. • A model analysing the viability of industrial wood-fired CHP in the particular context of Sub-Saharan Africa is provided. • Key barriers to the development of waste-wood-fuelled CHP in Sub-Saharan Africa are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]