03/10/2026
Africa is installing roughly 100,000 solar panels a day. Most of them don't show up in any official record.
A new analysis released last week estimates 17 gigawatts of solar capacity coming online across Africa this year — a 45% increase from the prior year, and the third record year in a row. That's enough electricity, every year, to power more than 20 million typical African homes. Thirty-six of Africa's 54 countries are on track for their biggest year ever.
About three-quarters of this is small, customer-owned systems. No subsidy program drove this. People and businesses decided solar was the best alternative to unreliable grid power and expensive diesel.
In Sierra Leone, the solar installed this year could nearly double what the grid generates annually.
When the grid can't reach you, sun and storage mean you don't have to wait for it.
Ember
Africa installs a record 17 GW of solar in 2026 - three-quarters of it is distributed solar, which is largely invisible.
