When the electricity runs out in Soweto in the evening, it’s not only dark, it’s also dangerous. “Guys can show up and try to break into the property. You can’t see them, they’re invisible,” says Nonhlanhla Morudu. The 45-year-old lives with her mother and three children in the Johannesburg suburb. “So we installed some solar lamps so that there is light around us and we are safer.”
Africa has hardly any solar power – but big plans
Solar power is climate-neutral, the investment costs are manageable – and at the same time the need for cheap and reliable electricity in Africa is enormous. In addition, there are optimal conditions for solar systems, especially in the north and south: 60 percent of the premium areas worldwide are lagging behind Information from the International Energy Agency (IEA) on the continent. And yet so far only one percent of the world’s installed capacity can be found in Africa.
Something about that will change soon. Marc Howard from the British consulting firm Africa Energy expects the continent’s current output to triple by 2025. According to his company’s data, more than 1,100 systems are currently producing solar power in Africa, with a total capacity of 7.4 gigawatts. For comparison: the photovoltaic systems installed in Germany alone had an output of around 58 gigawatts in 2020. By 2024 it should be almost 23 gigawatts in Africa – or more, since solar systems often only need a little planning. Is Africa just at the beginning of a solar power revolution?
South Africa: Escape the electricity crisis with solar systems
“South Africa is the boom market for photovoltaics, because recently commercial providers only have to have a license for 100 megawatts or more, which would be a large solar park,” Howard told DW. These are mainly companies, for example from the mining sector, that need a lot of electricity and no longer want to rely on the troubled state electricity supplier Eskom.
Large solar parks like this 75 megawatt plant near Lamberts Bay are no longer uncommon in South Africa
Decades of mismanagement and missed maintenance have ensured that Eskom is far from being able to cover the country’s electricity requirements and is disconnecting different districts from the grid for a few hours at fixed intervals – “loadshedding” is what they call it in South Africa. A private solar system on the roof can help to become independent from the unreliable electricity supplies – even at night. “You’re only immune to load shedding if your solar system has a battery,” says Megan Euston-Brown, director of the nonprofit organization Sustainable Energy Africa. This can feed a separate circuit that is activated during load shedding.
The acquisition costs for this are amortized after seven years, without a battery system after five years, says Kevin Robinson from the photovoltaic industry association AFSIA: “With low acquisition costs, an unreliable power grid and possibly rising electricity prices, it is worth installing solar systems on the roof,” says Robinson in the DW interview.
Rising costs, unclear financing
And this despite the fact that the industry has been reporting significant price increases as a result of disrupted supply chains since 2020. A large part of the global photovoltaic production is located in China, which, with its strict zero-Covid policy, continues to lock down entire cities with millions of inhabitants and with them the workforce of the manufacturers. At the same time, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine is driving up energy prices in Europe, making new photovoltaic projects very lucrative in the long run. Solar developers, says analyst Marc Howard, are certain “that the era of very cheap solar components is more or less over.”
If an economically strong player such as a South African mining company wants to set up a solar park, it is relatively easy to get a cheap loan. However, financing is more difficult for many state-owned electricity suppliers, says Howard: “Global inflation shocks have triggered economic crises. And the demands on African governments (to obtain loans, ed.) are absolutely enormous,” says the analyst. “Many people therefore find that richer countries have to provide much more help to modernize the electricity grid” – because access to electricity is fundamental to strong economic growth.
A panel against electricity poverty: Access to electricity is a Sustainable Development Goal of the UN
“Only about 1.5 percent of global investment in the power sector is made in sub-Saharan Africa, the region is severely underfunded,” adds Megan Euston-Brown.
Solar energy instead of climate-damaging coal
In the past, there was money mainly for coal-fired power plants – but China, as an important lender, stopped financing the climate-damaging reactors a year ago. According to the IEA report, planned power plants with a total output of 15 gigawatts were therefore not connected to the grid, and a number of African governments had already backed away from coal plans – only in South Africa and Zimbabwe are the last new coal-fired power plants on the continent being built.
In South Africa, the government and local authorities are also aware that the carbon footprint of exports must be reduced, says Megan Euston-Brown. “And then there is the fact that renewables are the cheapest.”
Around the equator, where a lot of water and clouds make the solar yield worse, hydropower is often used – China also continues to give loans for new dams. But when financing conditions are difficult, solar energy is scalable and therefore once again has an advantage, explains “Sustainable Energy Africa” director Euston-Brown in a DW interview. If money is tight, smaller solar systems can be set up that still produce electricity.
According to analyzes by Africa Energy, almost all African countries will produce solar power by the middle of the decade. In addition to South Africa and several Maghreb countries, Angola, Ethiopia, Botswana, the Ivory Coast and Chad in particular are planning large increases.
This is what residential areas of the future could look like: Solar systems span the parking lots in Palm Springs near Johannesburg
So is a solar power revolution just beginning? “Probably not, but rather an evolution,” says association representative Kevin Robinson with a view to the still difficult financing. At least in South Africa “a kind of revolution” is taking place, believes Megan Euston-Brown: “A great awareness of it has grown here. We have great economic advantages through solar energy. But at the same time it is a long and rocky road to turn our energy industry upside down.”
Assistance: Thuso Khumalo (Soweto)
