The African Solar Industry Association (AFSIA) released its annual “Africa Solar Outlook 2026” on 15 January 2026, with a headline finding: Africa’s cumulative installed solar capacity grew by 26% in 2025, reaching 23.4 GW at year end. That growth rate (26%) outpaced every other continent except Asia (29%). More importantly, 2025 marked the first year that annual solar additions in Africa (almost 5 GW) exceeded new hydroelectric capacity, signalling a structural shift towards distributed and utility scale PV.

Utility scale projects accounted for 3.2 GW of the 2025 additions, with South Africa leading (1.8 GW from the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme), followed by Egypt (650 MW from the Kom Ombo and Benban expansions) and Morocco (400 MW from the Noor Midelt II phase). For the first time, a utility scale project in sub Saharan Africa (South Africa’s 200 MW “Solar Park Redstone” with 4 hour molten salt storage) achieved a tariff of USD 0.042/kWh – cheaper than new coal.

Commercial and industrial (C&I) solar grew even faster, adding 1.5 GW, driven by high diesel displacement savings. In Nigeria, the C&I segment expanded 45% year on year as manufacturing plants switched to solar plus battery due to unreliable grid power and diesel prices exceeding USD 1.20/litre. Kenya’s tea estates and flower farms are now almost entirely solar powered during daylight hours.

Off grid solar (home systems, mini grids) added approximately 300 MWp but enabled 12 million new connections – mostly in East and West Africa. Pay as you go solar company M KOPA announced it had connected its 5 millionth customer in Kenya.

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are described by AFSIA as a “transformative technology”. In 2025, Africa commissioned 1.8 GW of new storage capacity (in power terms) – more than the sum of all previous years. The largest is a 250 MW / 1,000 MWh project in South Africa’s Northern Cape, paired with a 500 MW solar farm. Storage is now becoming economical even without subsidies, as battery costs fell 40% from 2022 to 2025.

The 2026 outlook forecasts that Africa will commission its first gigawatt scale solar plus storage project in 2026: the “Grand Inga Solar” (1.2 GW PV + 500 MW BESS) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, financed by the World Bank and Africa50. However, AFSIA also warns that grid bottlenecks and a lack of transmission infrastructure are emerging as serious constraints, especially in Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana. The report calls for a continent wide grid modernisation initiative to avoid curtailment of low cost solar.