In a two-part series, we explore how China is, directly and indirectly, bolstering power supply in Africa, enabling countries to move towards achieving some Sustainable Development Goals. We start with how some homes that would have been under darkness for ages are seeing light.
By Charles Mpaka:
In a hard-to-reach Nayupe Village in Traditional Authority Kapeni in the outskirts of Blantyre, Ephraim Louis cannot imagine where his redemption would have come from without the solar panel on the roof of his house.
“I am not a captive of darkness anymore,” says Louis, 42. “It’s more than 10 years since I installed this system and we still don’t have the main grid anywhere near us. No one here thinks it will ever come.”
But there’s something more significant about this investment.
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“When I kicked darkness out of my home, I realised it wasn’t just throwing out the darkness of the night but of poverty too. The small businesses I set up because of this power have greatly improved my family’s welfare,” he says.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, off-grid solar (OGS) home systems are bringing light – and social and economic progress – to households that main grids would have left in despair potentially for ages.
Disconnected from grids
Across the continent, connection to electric grids remains unimpressive, according to a 2022 Afrobarometer survey of 34 African countries, 32 of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. The survey finds that only 45 percent of rural residents have access to electric grid. In contrast, in urban areas, 94 percent have the access.
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Further, less than six in 10 households are actually connected to a grid but these connections favour the economically advantaged homes.
For those connected, reliability is an issue – only around 43 percent said the electricity works most of or all the time.
“A majority of Africans still lack reliable electricity from the national grid, whether because the grid doesn’t reach them, [or] they can’t afford to connect to it, or service from the grid is unreliable,” concludes Afrobarometer, a pan-African research organization.
OGS products taking control
During the survey, almost quarter of the people said they use other sources, with solar products the most popular alternative, mostly by rural populations to “compensate for non-existent or poor-quality service from the national grid.”
In the solar products market, Sub-Saharan Africa is “the rising star”, accounting for 70 percent of sales of pico-solar products globally.
Driving this growth, according to Global Off- Grid Lighting Association (Gogla), a body for the off-grid solar energy industry, are technical advances that have reduced the cost of solar panels —thereby increasing their affordability — and their size — making them easier to transport.
Gogla’s Senior Communications Manager, Eva Roig, says start-ups, digital payment solutions, subsidy schemes and NGOs-government partnerships have strongly contributed to the widespread uptake in Sub- Saharan Africa.
In some countries, these products are mainstreamed in government programmes. In Malawi, for example, their distribution is a component in the Ministry of Energy’s Malawi Rural Electrification Programme.
Government says some Malawian households are very less privileged they cannot afford electricity units even if in-house wiring was done for them. It therefore targets this population with solar home systems under the programme.
Made in China
Louis is not a beneficiary of the programme. A friend in the village used to travel to Zambia for business. One day, he brought home a small solar panel.
Louis was inspired. In 2013, he purchased his, a 15-watt panel. Like his friend’s, this too was MADE IN CHINA.
In the rise of OGS products, China rules. It is literally lighting up millions of off-grid households in Sub-Saharan Africa, with one study describing “a surprising dependency on the Chinese market” from the raw materials to assembled photovoltaic systems (PVs).
China controls the supply of primary materials, manufacturing, installed capacity and recycling capacity and produces at least 80 percent of the main components of PVs, according to the study. In 2024, it had the world’s top 10 suppliers of solar PV manufacturing equipment. It is the world’s top exporter of manufactured solar PVs.
Roig says China “strategically positioned itself as the global leader” in solar PV production, including polysilicon refining, module manufacturing and creation of essential components like wafers, cells and panels. This has contributed to driving down costs of production, Roig says.
She argues though that over-reliance on one country can leave the industry more vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, trade disputes and even geopolitical tensions.
She however highlights ongoing initiatives on the back of China’s dominance. India is showing potential to become a hub for solar production. Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Nigeria are piloting initiatives for assembling or producing solar items. In Benin, a Gogla member, has established a production facility.
“Local production and assembly can reduce reliance on imports, create jobs, improve carbon footprint, facilitate repair and recycling, and mitigate supply chain disruptions,” Roig tells Malawi News.
Dark side of OGS products
As OGS systems flood in, so is waste problem.
The Sub-Sahara Africa market is largely unregulated and burdened by affordability challenges, lack of adequate local expertise and low access to maintenance and repair services, research finds. These have created a home for short lifespan products.
Combined with high adoption rates, it has resulted in rapid accumulation of waste such that in 2020, the region generated an estimated 12,000 tonnes of waste from the products, a 545 percent increase over the amounts generated in 2016.
Christopher Kinnally, researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at The University of Manchester, says while extending national grids to rural areas should still be the priority, OGS systems currently remain a promising way to expand electricity access because the market is well established and embedded into societies across the region.
“Therefore, the focus should be to support the solar market with the regulation and waste management infrastructure necessary to prevent environmental and health burdens,” Kinnally tells Malawi News.
So far, Gogla has been working with industry leaders to address product quality and e-waste issues.
“Ensuring high-quality, durable products immediately reduces the amount of e-waste through long product lifetimes and repair. Embedding quality standards into regulation would be an essential step to avoid poor-quality products from entering the market,” Roig says.
But there is clearly more work to do, she admits.
OGS: A complement or a threat?
Should the rapid uptake of solar products be seen as a threat to growth of grid operations?
Gogla sees complementarity instead, driven by the common objective to achieve global development goals, including universal electrification, and considering that space exists for all technologies.
With many utilities struggling to cover their running costs, access through off-grid solar solutions can ensure national suppliers are not saddled by remote connection costs, Roig says.
According to her, a significant amount of the necessary connections needed to fully expand electricity access by 2030 will come through OGS as the quickest and most cost-effective solution.
Currently, in remote, sparsely populated areas like Louis’ village where electric grid does not consider them commercially viable, OGS systems offers solution for reliable and affordable access to electricity for people to charge their personal advancement.
Louis’ is one such story.
Noting the benefits of his initial investment, he upgraded his system over the years to 200 watts so he could accommodate the business opportunities he saw.
Today, his home is a lively business hub – his wife is cutting hair of one boy while several others are on a queue; on a small table in his living room, he is charging several cell phones from the community and the shelter next door is packed with people from the village watching video shows.
Through the money he has been generating from these services, he purchased two motorcycles, which he hires out, expanding his income sources.
“I can afford fertiliser for my farm. We never ran out of food in my house. I don’t struggle with fees for my children’s education; so we are okay,” says Louis, a father of 7 children.
