Households and businesses are driving a solar boom in Africa, where rooftop arrays and other small systems account for the bulk of new solar installations. But this rapid buildout, which is driving solar additions to record levels, is largely unaccounted for in official statistics, analysts say.
"The rapid spread of distributed solar in sub-Saharan Africa is an underreported success story," write analysts at the energy think tank Ember and the African Tech Futures Lab. "However, since African countries are running blind to this change, they are not reflecting this rise in distributed solar in their plans."
Because most distributed solar systems are not tracked or regulated, most households cannot sell their surplus power back to the grid, analysts say. Ultimately, the lack of data on distributed solar could lead countries to underinvest in the batteries and grid infrastructure needed to store and distribute solar energy, and to overinvest in fossil fuels.
Because official statistics are lacking, analysts used customs data to track the flow of solar equipment to Africa from China, the biggest manufacturer of solar panels globally. They found that Africa will add the equivalent of 17 gigawatts of solar capacity this year, more than enough to meet the continent's average yearly growth in demand. Some 36 countries will install record volumes of solar in 2026, while 19 will install more than twice as much solar as they did last year.
In countries with rickety power grids, many people rely on diesel generators to cope with recurrent blackouts. But analysts say the Iran war has pushed up diesel prices, making solar a more attractive alternative. "Generating the same electricity from a diesel generator as from a solar panel would cost as much in diesel, every three months, as the solar panel itself," they write. In almost every country in Africa, more than half of solar capacity installed since 2023 is distributed, analysts estimate.
"This transition is chaotic and disruptive, and far from the orderly model planned in national strategies," said Joel Nana, research director at African Tech Futures Lab. "The choice now is whether these distributed assets remain a parallel power system that compensates for grid failure or are integrated in ways that unleash a wider range of benefits."
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