The International Solar Alliance (ISA) and its partners have released Solarising Africa: Advancing the Continental Clean Energy Transition, a new report mapping out how the continent can move beyond simply generating solar power to embedding it across agriculture, mobility, distributed energy and regional power systems.
The report was unveiled as the Africa Regional Committee Meeting brought ISA member countries together to chart the continent’s solar trajectory, positioning the document as both a diagnosis of where Africa’s clean energy transition stands and a roadmap for accelerating it.
Africa’s solar numbers tell a story of vast, largely untapped potential. The alliance projects that solar capacity could rise from about 20-22 gigawatts today to 150-200 gigawatts by 2030, 500 gigawatts by 2040 and 1 terawatt by 2050. Yet turning that trajectory into reality, the report argues, will require far more than sunshine.
Finance remains the continent’s central obstacle. Officials at the ISA’s Africa gathering described the cost of capital as the greatest constraint on solar expansion, warning that technically sound projects can become financially unviable when borrowing costs are too high. The report echoes calls for public and concessional finance to be deployed more strategically, reducing risk in ways that draw in private investment rather than substituting for it.
Beyond financing, the Solarising Africa strategy places a strong emphasis on ensuring Africans benefit directly from the buildout. The ISA has identified local manufacturing and skills development as key measures needed to scale solar deployment across the continent, a position echoed by the African Union, which has argued that solar expansion should create opportunities for African workers and businesses rather than deepen dependence on imported equipment.
The report’s release comes at a moment of accelerating momentum for African solar. Continental installations are projected to climb sharply through the rest of the decade, building on renewable-energy pledges made at recent global climate talks that singled out Africa’s role in the energy transition. Blended finance mechanisms to de-risk solar investment featured heavily in those discussions, with tens of billions of dollars in new commitments directed at renewables, including funds earmarked for off-grid solar and mini-grids in underserved regions.
For Zimbabwe and its neighbours, hosting the Regional Committee Meeting places the country at the centre of these conversations, reinforcing recent moves — including Zimbabwe’s signing onto the ISA’s Africa Solar Facility — that position it among the alliance’s priority partners on the continent. The Solarising Africa report is expected to guide how member states and financiers translate the region’s solar ambition into bankable projects over the coming years.