Solar power has crossed a structural threshold in parts of Africa. In thirteen countries, it now supplies more than 10% of total electricity generation, according to new data published by the African Solar Industry Association (AFSIA).
That level of penetration places solar inside the core of national electricity supply, particularly in countries with limited grid scale and high exposure to fuel imports.
AFSIA’s Africa Solar Outlook 2026, released on January 14, shows that the highest solar shares are concentrated in smaller and more fragile power systems. The Central African Republic leads the continent, with solar accounting for 37.7% of its electricity mix. Chad follows at 36.7%, while Somalia generates 32.4% of its electricity from solar.
A second tier of countries has also crossed the 10% mark. Sierra Leone sources 18.1% of its electricity from solar, Namibia 17.7%, Mauritania 16.7%, Comoros 16.5%, South Sudan 13.3%, Burkina Faso 11.8% and Malawi 11%. South Africa, Eritrea and Cabo Verde complete the group of thirteen countries where solar now provides at least one-tenth of electricity generation.
In total, 23 African countries generate 5% or more of their electricity from solar. This remains a minority of the continent’s 54 countries, underscoring how uneven solar adoption still is. Even so, the data show that where solar gains traction, it does so quickly, particularly in systems where alternatives are limited or costly.
At the continental level, Africa added 2.4 gigawatts of new solar capacity in 2025, bringing total installed capacity to 23.4 gigawatts. This was a slowdown from 2024, when installations reached 3.7 gigawatts. AFSIA attributes the year-on-year decline partly to project delays and financing constraints, rather than weakening demand.
AFSIA’s capacity figures include utility-scale projects feeding national grids, commercial and industrial installations, mini-grids, and solar home systems. However, the association concedes that its estimates do not fully capture the scale of deployment, particularly for smaller, distributed systems that fall outside formal reporting channels.
To address this blind spot, the report draws on export data from energy think tank Ember, which tracks shipments of solar panels from China. China supplies roughly 90% of the global solar equipment market, making its export data a useful indicator of where capacity is actually being deployed.
Ember’s data show that African countries imported 58.1 gigawatts of solar panels from China between 2017 and 2025. By extrapolating earlier imports and adding a conservative adjustment for pre-2017 installations, AFSIA estimates that Africa’s true installed solar capacity could be closer to 63.9 gigawatts, nearly three times higher than standard capacity figures suggest.
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If this estimate is accurate, Africa’s share of global installed solar capacity rises from about 0.7% to roughly 2.6%. That would not make Africa a major solar market by global standards, but it would indicate that solar has spread far more widely across the continent than official statistics imply.
The report also points to energy storage as a growing factor in how solar is used. Battery systems are increasingly being paired with solar installations, replacing older thermal storage models and expanding the role of solar beyond daytime supply.
Recent cost estimates cited in the report place the cost of converting solar generation into continuous electricity at around $33 per megawatt-hour for storage, with total round-the-clock supply costing roughly $76 per megawatt-hour.
In African power systems that rely heavily on imported diesel, heavy fuel oil, or gas, those figures are already competitive. The data suggest that solar’s growing share in several countries is less about long-term ambition and more about immediate system economics.
By Thuita Gatero, Managing Editor, Africa Digest News. He specializes in conversations around data centers, AI, cloud infrastructure, and energy.
