Africa installed about 100,000 solar panels a day this year — a boom the official statistics cannot yet see

Energy think tank Ember traced shipments of solar panels from China and built a new method to estimate what actually got installed across Africa. Its conclusion: the continent installed about 17 gigawatts of solar in 2026 — roughly 100,000 panels every day — up 45% on last year, and roughly double what international statistics recorded for 2025. Much of the growth is rooftop and community solar that official counters miss entirely, which means the world's sunniest continent is going solar faster than the record books know.

SDG 7 · Affordable and clean energy — Mechanism: market force