From pv magazine France
AFSIA has released a new annual report on PV deployment in Africa. It said the continent connected around 3.7 GW of new solar capacity in 2023.
About 65% of the new installations were industrial and commercial (C&I) power plants for self-consumption, said AFSIA. “Unlike other regions of the world, there have been only a handful of large-scale projects, responding to government requests, that have been connected to the African power grid in 2023,” it added.
The association estimated that Africa passed the 16 GW threshold of cumulative installed PV capacity at the end of December. However, that “does not take into account residential installations which are not monitored by AFSIA,” it added. The figure is only based on projects it has identified, while some projects may still be unknown at this stage, it explained.
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“By quickly changing tack to focus on self-consumption, South Africans are showing the rest of the continent the way forward. A path where alternative options exist and are financially viable in the event of failure of the national public utility,” said AFSIA. “The South Africans had no choice and had to adapt very quickly.”
Burkina Faso has installed the second-most solar capacity in Africa with 92 MW, followed by Mauritania with 84 MW, Kenya with 69.5 MW, and the Democratic Republic of Congo with 40 MW. Except for Mauritania, where all of the new capacity is C&I, these countries have built large-scale projects. Another 15 countries installed more than 10 MW each last year, but most African states remain below 1 MW of installed capacity.
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Seeing as Africa is the continent with the greatest solar potential, we have to ask why Africa installed less solar in 2023 than the Netherlands? (thought the 3.7 GW will produce more than the Netherlands 4GW).
Shouldn’t each of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt be planning 50GW solar farms?
Mauritania could be richer than Saudi Arabia as it has not only vast areas with great solar insolation but also very generous wind speeds at the coast. They could/should be the greatest producer of “green steel” in the world. Frankly I’m surprised that this isn’t at least in the planning stages. They have abundant iron and abundant energy.