Africa: Global manufacturers target ‘underestimated’ solar market

Solar may in fact be 2.75x more prevalent in Africa than most professionals believe, a new report highlights

The scale of solar energy in Africa has largely been underestimated, with major global manufacturers now setting their eyes on the continent as the next growth market.

Africa’s energy transformation is happening fast! In just 12 months, the continent imported 15GW of solar panels, a 60% increase from the previous year

This is the key take-out from this year’s Africa Solar Outlook 2026 report by the Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA).

New data unearthed by AFSIA “fundamentally changes” the picture of solar in Africa, the report says.

“When cross-checking both this bottom-up and top-down approaches, albeit with their respective limitations, we manage to obtain a very different picture of solar in Africa than what has been portrayed in the past. 

“For many years, most industry analysts (including AFSIA) appear to have very much underestimated the scale of solar in Africa. At the end of 2025, AFSIA has uniquely identified 23.4GWp worth of operational projects in Africa,” the Association said. 

Tapping Chinese data to map out solar landscape

The report also notes that Chinese export data indicate that 58.1GWp have been exported to African nations since 2017. 

“Extrapolating for export before 2017 (official data not available before 2017) adds another 10% of capacity, bringing the likely total capacity installed in Africa to 63.9GWp.

“This means that solar may in fact be 2.75x more prevalent in Africa than most professionals may believe (including AFSIA pre-2025). Africa, while still representing a minor fraction of the global solar business, is actually three to four times more important than the narrative may have conveyed over the years (from 0.7% to 2.6% of global capacity in 2023-2025). 

“… we will also highlight that Africa is the region of the world with the fastest growth. It is therefore not surprising that the major global manufacturers have now set their eyes on Africa as the next growth market, several of them even establishing manufacturing facilities on the continent.”

Fastest solar growth is in Africa

AFSIA said Chinese export data “can help us identify global and regional trends.” 

“It can also help us compare Africa ‘apple to apple’ with other regions. And in 2025, this analysis identifies Africa as the globe’s fastest growing region for solar.”

The report says that between 2019 and 2022, Africa was positioned among the least growing regions of the world. 

2023 gave the continent a major boost, pushed by the loadshedding crisis in South Africa, and brought the region to the second fastest growing region that year (+122%). 

“This performance was then further sustained in 2024 and 2025, albeit with more moderate growth rates (+37% and +17% respectively). 

“And when zooming in on 2025, it appears that only three regions have increased their imports compared to 2024: China, Africa and the Middle East.”

Increased solar growth in Africa

And among those three, Africa has grown the most with a 17% increase, the report says. 

“Over the past decade, Africa has repetitively been presented as one of the least attractive solar regions, representing a mere 0.5% to 1% of the market. 

“But with the latest info collected, this perception is quickly changing. First, it appears that Africa represented a much bigger market share, but this simply was not properly tracked and measured (and a lot still needs to be done to obtain accurate data). 

“But more importantly, Africa now appears to be experiencing one of the fastest growths on the globe and therefore becoming a key market to tap into for all types of industry stakeholders. The next few years will show is this growth is only temporary or is based on strong foundations that make solar the unavoidable way forward to electrify the African continent.”

Global solar sector growth

Worldwide, between 544GW and 660GW of solar was added in 2025, “once again the most it has ever added in history.” 

“Installed capacity increased by 23% year-on-year. In 2025, an estimated 618GWp were added globally. This marks another record year for solar capacity additions. 

“As in previous years, it is remarkable to note that the past year of solar installations has represented an addition of roughly 30% of all historically installed solar capacity. This has been the case for the past five years.” 

The report says that as a result, the global total installed capacity has almost tripled since 2021 and almost quadrupled since 2020. 

“Solar has once again experienced a solid growth in 2025, albeit lower than the two previous years. In 2025, the growth rate was 23% (618GWp vs. 503GWp), while it is was 44% in 2024 (503GWp vs 350GWp) and 46% in 2023 (350GWp vs. 240GWp).”

Solar set for continued growth in Africa

The report says that 2025 may have seen a lower growth rate than in previous years, but the industry remains on an exponential growth trajectory identified in previous reports. 

“For many years, all industry experts have agreed that not enough was being done to achieve the 2030 targets. 

“However, 2025 may represent a turning point as the exponential growth of renewables and solar in particular seems to generate some divergent opinions about leading industry voices.”

At the end of 2025, based on this bottom-up approach, AFSIA said it managed to identify and monitor 42,000+ different projects individually across Africa. 

AFSIA believes this is the most-comprehensive dataset in the African solar industry. 

“The 2025 total represents an increase of approximately 40% more projects identified compared to end of 2024. And from a capacity point of view, these projects represent a total of 296GWp, out of which 23.4GWp are in operation (26% increase of MWp in operation compared to 2024).”

Cover photo:   kutchek