The African solar market is diversifying, with more and more markets making significant progress in deploying large-scale solar projects at the national level.
Benjamin Clarke, operations director of the Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA), said pv magazine a number of countries, namely Tanzania, Zambia and Algeria, have made significant progress this year, with utility-scale projects arriving rapidly.
“What we’re seeing more and more is a diversification of the market, which is a very, very good sign,” Clarke said at the Smarter E event in Munich, Germany. “Because we cannot just rely on the traditionally largest markets to lead the metrics for the rest of the continent.”
The demand for C&I is growing
Beyond utility-scale projects, Clarke noted continued growth in the African commercial and industrial (C&I) market segment as another key driver, driven by improved project economics.
He said system costs are now between $0.08/kWh and $0.20/kWh, compared to about $0.38/kWh for diesel.
“The economy has improved tremendously,” he says, adding that companies are increasingly turning to solar energy, either to go completely off-grid and protect themselves from volatile electricity prices, or to secure reliable backup power. Data centers and mining companies are emerging as particularly active buyers, with the latter companies’ strong balance sheets making them attractive partners for developers.
Interest among smaller companies is also growing, although Clarke has identified pre-financing as a sticking point for part of this market: “That’s a bit of a sticking point for the C&I segment at the moment, trying to figure out how to refinance these things,” he explained.
Financing projects
Project financing has traditionally been a barrier to solar and hybrid solar projects across Africa. At the request of pv magazine If that remains the case, Clarke described a continent-wide spectrum from highly centralized utility monopolies with little room for private investment, to more liberalized markets, such as South Africa, with established procurement frameworks. Most countries, he explained, are somewhere in between.
Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) continue to support much of what is built. Clarke explained that default rates for infrastructure projects in Africa are 5%, lower than in North America or Europe, in addition to a 100% recovery rate in the event of default, made possible in part by DFI support.
Clarke said private capital in more mature markets is starting to follow suit and is helping build financing capacity within national banking systems. But in other countries, a DFI-backed project or government guarantee remains crucial for project implementation.
Elsewhere, Africa’s local manufacturing sector is also growing, says Clarke, with key areas of activity including Indian companies considering collection points in East Africa, as well as a South African project exploring solar cell production.
Data collection
AFSIA continues to develop its online project database, which tracks projects of all sizes in all African countries. To date, the database has tracked more than 26,000 operational projects across the continent.
“I think we’ve tracked about 3.5 GWp in 2025 and so far in 2026 we’ve found 2.7 GWp,” Clarke said. pv magazine. “So if we continue at the current pace, we will see a significant increase in installations this year.”
Clarke also said AFSIA’s work in locating installed projects that have yet to be included in official statistics continues.
“We’re talking to contractors in markets where we feel like we haven’t had the best coverage to find projects from a few years ago that we haven’t found yet,” he explained. “So it’s a continuous and ongoing piece of work.”
