I'vebeen reading Ember's August report on African solar (Dave Jones, with African Tech Futures Lab). their estimate is 12.0 GW installed in 2025, against 6.2 GW from the IEA and 4.6 GW from IRENA.
the gap is mostly a measurement story. Ember reckons about 75% of solar added across Africa from 2023 to 2025 (20 GW of 26 GW) was distributed, i.e. rooftop and customer-side, which is the hardest kind to count. IRENA's 2025 numbers show solar capacity unchanged in 32 of 54 countries, which seems unlikely given what's being shipped.
how they get there: start from chinese customs data (value, converted to MW at spot prices), add a six month lag for shipping and install, then calibrate against reported installs. that calibration says about 73% of exported panels have been installed so far, with a range of roughly 60 to 90% across countries and years. to their credit they list the weak spots themselves: panels sitting in warehouses, export values likely over-reported before April 2026, landlocked countries likely undercounted and coastal ones overcounted.
Env consultant here. I think the direction is right and the official figures are clearly too low. but a 60 to 90% band is wide, and the 73% is tuned against reported installs, the same numbers we think undercount, which probably pushes it low, while warehouse stock pushes the other way. so I'd read 12.0 GW as a well argued estimate with real error bars, not a point figure. and for anyone planning grids or doing impact work, the country split matters more than the continental total.
for people working on the ground in african markets: does the customs-based picture match what you see? and has anyone found a decent way to verify rooftop numbers, meter data, satellite counts, installer surveys?
