New report says Africa is now leading the global solar growth.
The continent saw a 26% increase in installed capacity in 2025, reaching 23.4 gigawatts.
The continent's rapid expansion has outpaced China and the Middle East.
Improved storage solutions and falling costs are key contributing factors.
The Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA) said Africa is seeing the largest growth in the deployment of solar as a source of power in the world.
The continent, which until now suffered from extreme energy poverty, recorded a 26 per cent increase in its installed capacity in 2025, reaching 23.4 gigawatts from over 42,000 projects, according to the Africa Solar Outlook 2026 released January 14, 2026. Africa recorded the highest year-on-year growth rate of any global region, alongside China and the Middle East, and it outpaced both in relative terms, the report showed.
“Africa has long been perceived as a marginal solar market,” said John van Zuylen, chief executive of AFSIA. “The Africa Solar Outlook 2026 demonstrates that this perception no longer reflects reality. Solar is already far more widespread than previously believed, and Africa is now experiencing the fastest solar growth of any region worldwide.”
The continent is now commanding an estimated 3 per cent of the global solar segment, he noted, as improved storage is making solar viable across all the 54 countries.
Since 2019, AFSIA has applied a bottom-up methodology to track solar development across Africa, identifying projects individually across all segments. By the end of 2025, the association had documented more than 42,000 solar projects, representing 296 Gigawatt peak (GWp) of cumulative capacity, with 23.4 GWp operational — a 26 per cent increase in operating capacity compared to 2024.
According to van Zuylen, for the first time, the Africa Solar Outlook 2026 supplements this approach with top-down approach, also taking into account solar export data from China, compiled by energy think-tank Ember. As China accounts for roughly 90 per cent of global solar module exports, this dataset provides a robust proxy for estimating installed capacity that may not yet be formally documented.
“The combined analysis produces a substantially revised picture. While 23.4 GWp of operational solar capacity has been uniquely identified in Africa, export data suggest that around 63.9 GWp of solar capacity has been exported to (hence likely been installed) across the continent. This indicates that solar may be nearly three times more prevalent in Africa than previously estimated.”
“As a result, Africa’s share of global solar capacity rises from below 1 per cent to around 2.5–3 per cent, positioning the continent as a far more significant contributor to the global solar market than earlier narratives suggested.”
This 26 per cent increase in new solar installations recorded in 2025 was a slowdown from the peak of 44 per cent grow recorded in 2024. In 2023, the continent registered a 22 per cent growth in new solar installations.
The 23.4 GWp capacity accounts for solar for utility-scale, commercial and industrial, mini-grids as well as solar home systems (SHS).
“In 2025, leading performers by solar capacity per capita include South Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius, Namibia and Cape Verde, while countries such as Chad, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea and Botswana recorded the strongest upward movements year-on-year,” the report said. It showed that more than half of the countries in the continent are already getting at least 10 per cent of their power from solar.
The Africa Solar Outlook 2026 points to the rapid expansion of battery energy storage systems (BESS) as a game change in the African solar landscape. The reports said falling costs and technological advances are enabling solar power to move beyond intermittency and provide dispatchable, round-the-clock electricity.
“Recent analysis shows that it now costs around $33 / MWh to convert daytime solar into fully dispatchable power using storage,” the researchers wrote in the report. They added:
It said, across Africa, solar-plus-storage projects are now operating in applications previously considered unviable, including industrial baseload supply and utility-scale installations.
“For commercial and industrial consumers, photovoltaic+BESS systems have become cost-competitive with grid electricity and significantly cheaper than diesel generation, even before accounting for the economic impact of grid outages," according to the authors of the report.
Doubts about realability of solar power have also started to be dispelled, said experts. Improved power storage in the form of lithium batteries, has addressed some perception issues that previously haunted solar power, resulting in the current boom, Victor Kashawu, the director of Vicky Solars, a Zimbabwean solar firm, told Down To Earth (DTE).
Africa has immense solar energy potential — average daily solar irradiation ranges from 16 to 24 MJ per square meter per day. Further, the continent's solar growth momentum has attracted increased attention from international manufacturers, developers, and investors, several of whom have established production and assembly facilities on the continent, the authors of the report noted.
Also favouring this thrust has been the over 90 per cent drop in the cost of solar products in the last decade. According to the International Energy Agency, solar power has the potential to contribute 15 per cent of Africa’s electricity by 2030 that could double to 30 per cent by 2040.
Experts, however, said that the downside of solar energy include the huge initial capital outlay required, which most African governments and households may not readily have. In order to promote investment in solar, some African governments have been providing incentives to those going solar. Zimbabwe, one of the countries that have seen a huge increase in solar installations, removed import duty on all solar products while between 2023 and 2024 South Africa allowed individuals that had installed solar systems on their properties to claim rebates equal to 25 per cent of the cost they had incurred.
Nyasha Chasakara, the chief executive of Solarpro Zimbabwe, a firm that is driving solar energy access in Africa, told DTE that in order to unlock the full potential of the solar sector, African governments should provide financial incentives to investors in this sector. He also suggested that the continent takes advantage of the global boom in solar to develop its own solar industry.
“On raw material side, Africa already has the bulk of the energy critical minerals that she continues to export without adding value. Africa then spends 100 times importing finished products,” said Chasakara, who is also an investment banker. “On the human resources front Africa needs to attract skills and knowledge transfer to produce renewable energy products locally that take into account local needs.”