Solar photovoltaic manufacturing in Africa: opportunity or mirage

The document examines Africa's potential to enter the solar PV manufacturing value chain, highlighting its abundance of critical minerals like copper and tin and high solar irradiance. It identifies significant barriers, including China's dominance of over 80% of the global value chain, high capital requirements for polysilicon production, and a lack of domestic technological capacity. The authors argue that individual African countries lack the resources to compete and instead recommend a regionalized strategy to pool resources and achieve economies of scale.

• Africa possesses significant natural resource endowments essential for solar PV production, specifically copper in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, and tin in Nigeria and Rwanda.
• The global solar PV market is highly concentrated, with China controlling more than 80% of the value chain from raw material extraction to module assembly, creating high entry barriers for African nations.
• African countries face severe financial and technological hurdles, particularly in the energy-intensive production of polysilicon, which represents about 30% of a solar module's total value.
• While some African countries like South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco have seen investment in solar power projects, overall foreign direct investment is insufficient to establish a large-scale manufacturing industry due to regulatory uncertainty and political instability.
• The paper proposes a regionalized solar PV strategy as the most viable path forward, allowing countries to pool resources and expertise to achieve economies of scale and build a competitive integrated value chain.

APA

Ndubuisi, G., & Avenyo, E. K. (2024). Solar photovoltaic manufacturing in Africa: opportunity or mirage. Africa Policy Research Institute. https://afripoli.org/solar-photovoltaic-manufacturing-in-africa-opportunity-or-mirage

Chicago

Ndubuisi, Gideon, and Elvis Korku Avenyo. Solar photovoltaic manufacturing in Africa: opportunity or mirage. Africa Policy Research Institute, 2024. https://afripoli.org/solar-photovoltaic-manufacturing-in-africa-opportunity-or-mirage.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ndubuisi |first1=Gideon |last2=Avenyo |first2=Elvis Korku |title=Solar photovoltaic manufacturing in Africa: opportunity or mirage |publisher=Africa Policy Research Institute |date=25 September 2024 |url=https://afripoli.org/solar-photovoltaic-manufacturing-in-africa-opportunity-or-mirage |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ndubuisi2024solar, author = {Ndubuisi, Gideon and Avenyo, Elvis Korku}, title = {{Solar photovoltaic manufacturing in Africa: opportunity or mirage}}, institution = {Africa Policy Research Institute}, year = {2024}, month = sep, url = {https://afripoli.org/solar-photovoltaic-manufacturing-in-africa-opportunity-or-mirage}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }