Plans for a huge renewables-powered green hydrogen project in Botswana and Namibia have been expanded fourfold, according to solar trade body the Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA), from 1GW of generation capacity to 5GW.
The project, in Southern Africa, was among the examples cited by the trade body as evidence of a strong large scale solar pipeline on the continent when AFSIA chief executive John van Zuylen hosted a webinar last month to present the organization's annual report for 2021.
Van Zuylen also pointed to the launch of a 1GW solar project in Algeria last year, which is set for development this year, and to plans for 5 projects in South Africa with a total generation capacity of 975MW.
Kenya is leading the charge in the, typically single-panel SHS household solar market, at the head of strong East African regional activity but West Africa also recorded strong figures last year, according to AFSIA, with 20 million SHS units operating in Africa in 2021, to the benefit of 100 million people.
Although the size of the systems sold was smaller than in the previous year, more units were shifted and there was increasing adoption of such small scale solutions to power irrigation and cold storage, according to the trade body's annual report.
While pv magazine has previously highlighted the effect of more expensive solar equipment on the African market, cheaper energy storage technology and the freer availability of finance helped fire a booming commercial and industrial solar market last year, according to AFSIA.
Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria boasted strong mini-grid markets in 2021, even if only 49MWp of generation capacity was provided by such off-grid networks across the continent during the last 12 months. AFSIA pointed out there is still a gap between project announcements and delivery and added only around 30% of the mini-grid projects announced in 2020 materialized.