Source: africanreview.com ,on Thursday, 28 January 2021
The continent’s capacity is forecast to reach 16.8 GW in 2020, add another 5.5 GW in 2021, and further climb to 51.2 GW in 2025, led by growth in solar and wind projects in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Ethiopia.
At present, South Africa leads the continent in terms of installed renewable energy capacity with 3.5 GW of wind, 2.4 GW of utility solar, and a solar-dominant 1 GW pipeline of projects in development. Egypt and Morocco are in second and third place in terms of solar capacity with 1.6 GW and 0.8 GW, respectively.
Nearly 40 out of 50 African countries have installed – or plan to install – wind or solar projects. And although the learning curve may be steep for first-time market entrants with sizable development pipelines, inexperienced players will be able to leverage the lessons learned in Egypt, South Africa and Morocco and implement this knowledge into development plans.
Algeria will see the most renewable growth in Africa towards 2025, increasing capacity from just 500MW in 2020 to almost 2.9GW in 2025. The increase will come primarily from one mega-project, the four gigawatts Tafouk 1 Mega Solar Project, which will be developed in five phases of 800MW capacity each, to be tendered between 2020 and 2024. Rystad Energy expects three of the tendered projects with 2.4GW of capacity will be commissioned by 2025.
Tunisia will also see formidable growth, skyrocketing from 350 MW of renewable capacity in 2020 to 4.5 GW in 2025
The additions will come from larger solar plants, such as the 2 GW TuNur Mega Project, which is currently in the early stages of development and is expected to come on line by 2025.
In terms of speed, Egypt has been one of the quickest African nations to install solar and wind since 2017, and currently has approximately three gigawatts of installed capacity. The country has a massive 9.2GW development pipeline, which mostly consists of wind projects – putting Egypt on track to overtake South Africa in 2025 and become the green powerhouse of Africa.
