From Nigeria to Senegal, solar is finding a growing market beyond traditional renewable-energy leaders, driven less by climate ambitions than by the economics of unreliable electricity and expensive conventional power.
Prasanna Singh10 Nov 2026 09:37 IST
West Africa’s solar market is showing signs of a significant acceleration, with the region adding 381 MWp of solar capacity in the first nine months of 2026. This is already 62% higher than the entire capacity added during 2025, according to reports.
The growth is particularly interesting because it points to a geographical broadening of Africa’s solar market, with countries beyond the continent’s traditional leaders increasingly contributing to deployment. More importantly, much of the demand is being driven by consumers and businesses seeking alternatives to unreliable grid electricity and rising fuel costs rather than waiting for large government-led renewable-energy programmes.
Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent illustrates this shift particularly well. The country has emerged as West Africa’s largest operational solar market, with approximately 620 MW of installed capacity, ahead of Senegal’s 425 MW, according to the Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA).
Nigeria’s annual solar installations have risen from approximately 15 MW in 2019 to 123 MW in 2024. Although additions fell to around 79 MW in 2025, the market is recovering. Around 89 MW of new capacity was already operational in 2026, with another 115 MW under construction as of late October. If completed, this could take annual additions beyond 200 MW, potentially a record for the country.
A particularly interesting development is the commercial and industrial (C&I) segment, which has reportedly grown by around 32% annually since 2021. Businesses are increasingly turning to solar to reduce their dependence on diesel generators, which have become an expensive necessity in a country where grid electricity remains unreliable. Nigeria also has approximately 132 MW of operational mini-grid solar capacity, making it the continent’s largest market for this segment.
The trend is not restricted to Nigeria. Senegal, Ghana, Zambia and Chad are among the emerging African solar markets that have begun contributing more meaningfully to deployment. The Global Solar Council estimates that eight African countries added at least 100 MW of solar in 2025, twice the number recorded a year earlier.
The bigger picture: A solar boom that official statistics may be missing
The West African growth story is part of a much larger African trend. An August 2026 assessment by Ember and the African Tech Futures Lab estimated that Africa could install 17 GW of solar during 2026, representing a 45% year-on-year increase.
Crucially, the assessment suggests that around three-quarters of Africa’s solar additions between 2023 and 2025 came from distributed installations, many of which are not captured in conventional capacity statistics.
Ember estimates that Africa installed 12 GW of solar in 2025, nearly twice the 6.2 GW estimated by the International Energy Agency and substantially above IRENA’s 4.6 GW. Its methodology uses Chinesesolar panel export data, adjusted for the proportion of shipments likely to have actually been installed. Yes, the exact same discrepancy and method used to measure Pakistan’s sharp solar growth as well.
The implications are significant. Solar additions in 2026 alone could generate approximately 23 TWh annually, broadly matching Africa’s average annual electricity demand growth over the preceding decade.
This is also creating a different kind of energy transition. Rather than waiting for utilities to expand grids and build large power plants, households, businesses, factories and even mining operations are increasingly investing in their own electricity supply.
There are caveats. Dependence on imported Chinese modules remains substantial, financing is a constraint, and distributed solar growth creates new challenges for grid planning and utility business models. But the direction of travel is becoming difficult to ignore.
For Africa, solar may be doing more than adding renewable capacity. It could be enabling electricity consumption and economic activity that conventional power infrastructure has struggled to support.
That makes the continent’s emerging solar markets worth watching much more closely than their official capacity statistics might suggest.
IRENANigeriaDistributed SolarSolar growthChinese dominanceWest AfricaAfrica Solar Industry Association’s (AFSIA)
