2024 an enormous boom year for energy storage in Africa

The Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA) has published its Africa Solar Outlook for 2025, detailing remarkable growth in energy storage, with 2024 registering a 1,045% increase over 2023.
AFSIA recorded annual capacity stalled at just around 50 MWh until 2022, which tripled in 2023 to over 150 MWh. In 2024, an estimated 1,500 MWh was installed across African nations.
Accounting for more than half of this figure alone was the Kenhardt 1-2-3 project by Norwegian renewables developer Scatec, a solar-plus-storage plant successfully commissioned in 2024. It alone delivered 540 MW of solar generation and a battery storage capacity of 225 MW/1,140 MWh.
The chart below shows the annual installations in MWh, with the chart coming from the AFSIA 2025 outlook:

AFSIA attributes the massive growth to “sharply decreasing prices” for lithium-ion storage solutions, referencing BloombergNEF estimates that the cost of such storage decreased by 20% in 2024, following an earlier 13% decrease in 2023.
Another significant driver has been stand-alone residential and C&I storage solutions in South Africa, where load shedding has become a persistent issue. In South Africa, the launch of the BESIPPPP – Battery Energy Storage IPP Procurement Program has been critical for storage. Launched in 2023, the program is now in its third bid window, with construction ongoing for projects awarded in bid window 1, totaling 513 MW/2,052 MWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS).
Large-scale projects are continuing the trend, with those announced or starting construction including the second phase of the Soma Project in The Gambia with 100 MW/130 MWh, and the 900 MW PV/720 MWh storage project in Egypt developed by Masdar and Infinity Power.
AFSIA said similar projects have also been launched in Senegal, Malawi, Botswana, Tanzania, Namibia and Mauritius, for a total of 500 MW plus.
In total, AFSIA says around 18GWh of storage projects are under development across Africa.