Solar Data Insights Report 2010-24 - methodology


African Energy’s Solar Data Insights Report 2010-24 is intended to provide a snapshot of the continent’s electricity supply industry (ESI) and the increasing role of solar technologies in its development.

Introduction

Over the last decade, solar technologies have emerged as an affordable and scalable power source for many countries across the African continent. Utility- scale solar may now be able to compete with even cheaper thermal generation, let alone the more costly and polluting diesel and other solutions. As equipment prices have continued to fall, financing has become more readily available, which has given solar great momentum. Cost reductions are expected to continue into the next decade and with an increasing number of governments and financial institutions committing to tackling climate change, solar’s expansion across the continent appears inevitable.

Solar power’s trajectory across Africa is highlighted by Solar Data Insights Report 2010-24, via an analysis of past trends, a review of current solar generation (including public and private procurement initiatives) and a discussion on the future path towards 2030. Given the right project structures, policy choices and access to finance the future looks bright, and substantially less polluting.

African Energy’s Solar Data Insights Report 2010-24 is intended to provide a snapshot of the continent’s electricity supply industry (ESI) and the increasing role of solar technologies in its development. The focus of Solar Data Insights Report 2010-24 is on-grid generation, drawing on rigorously researched project information from the African Energy Live Data resource. It also draws on African Energy’s extensive experience of monitoring and working in a range of countries to build a picture of solar markets and provide fit-for-purpose information for financial institutions, project developers, investors and other stakeholders.

Methodology

Data used in this report are sourced from African Energy Live Data, an innovative online database which, as this report went to press, contains more than 6,200 power generation projects across Africa. Being constantly updated, Live Data provides a highly accurate view of African electricity generation projects. This allows Live Data to provide instant access to the latest aggregated statistics for this report.

Electricity generation variables presented in this report are neither estimates nor based on modelling. Historical data is accurate and fully verified, whereas future years show the pipeline of planned projects. This data is the sum of projects with announced commercial operations dates and have achieved some milestones indicating that the announced timeline is still achievable. As a result, they do not take into account government targets, planned future procurement rounds or projects in early stage development without announced commissioning dates.

Live Data shows the development of solar projects is reducing, with an average of 28 months between PPA signing and commissioning. Therefore, an undetermined amount of new capacity will inevitably be brought online through to 2024, in addition to the already announced pipeline. Many of these projects are either yet to be announced, or remain in the early stages of development. As such, the pipeline will inevitably change and data for 2023-24 should be treated as purely indicative.

While African Energy’s proprietary content forms the bedrock of the report, external data sources are used to help inform this analysis. A full reference list can be seen on page 45.

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