Side-stepping, not leapfrogging: Africa’s cleantech innovation paradox
Rose M. Mutiso and Joel Nana • February 3, 2025
Illustration by Nadya Nickels
This piece was originally published on Cipher by Rose M. Mutiso and Joel Nana on February 3, 2025. Republished in full with permission. Read the original post here.
Rose Mutiso is research director of the Energy for Growth Hub. You can reach her at rose@energyforgrowth.org.
Joel Nana is project manager at Sustainable Energy Africa. You can reach him at joel@sustainable.org.za.
On the bustling streets of Nairobi, Kenya, electric motorcycles weave silently through traffic, their riders ferrying passengers and packages across the city. Meanwhile, in South Africa’s cities, rooftop solar panels glint in the sun, powering businesses that have grown tired of rolling blackouts.
These innovations paint a compelling picture of African ingenuity, as individuals, businesses and communities find creative ways to embrace clean energy technologies while bypassing traditional infrastructure constraints.
But look closer, and you’ll see a more complex story unfolding.
What we’re witnessing isn’t so much leapfrogging constraints as side-stepping them — creative solutions that work around broken systems rather than fixing them. While this entrepreneurial spirit is admirable and the growth of these technologies across Africa is worth celebrating, these democratized workarounds risk perpetuating the very systemic challenges they temporarily address.
Finding robust solutions will mean weaving these quick wins into a broader strategy for long-term development.
Motorcycle Surge
Consider those electric motorcycles. Their growth is part of a larger revolution in the African transport sector, where two- and three-wheel vehicles have surged dramatically, growing from five million in 2010 to 27 million in 2022. They’ve also created jobs for millions of people — typically young men who struggle to find other forms of employment — and offer essential delivery and taxi services.
In several countries, the commercial motorcycle sector is estimated to be one of the largest sources of employment outside of agriculture. Electrifying this growing fleet of motorcycles will have a big impact on Africa’s air quality and transport emissions. In response, a vibrant ecosystem of electric motorcycle startups has emerged in hotspots like Kenya and Rwanda, attracting investment and promising a clean energy revolution.
However, motorcycles — even electric ones — are no panacea for Africa’s mobility challenges. They solve some problems but create others. For example, motorcycle accidents account for nearly a third of road traffic fatalities globally, the highest among all other modes of transport, and their maneuverability has made them increasingly popular for criminal activities. These safety and security concerns have led several major cities, including Lagos, Kampala and Addis Ababa, to restrict motorcycle access in certain areas.
More fundamentally, focusing narrowly on electric vehicles risks reinforcing a disjointed approach to mobility rather than building sustainable, inclusive transit systems.
African countries’ climate commitments under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement emphasize broader systemic changes, with over half of of transport-related mitigation actions focusing on shifts to public transportation like trains and buses, as well as broader system improvements.
Rather than simply electrifying existing transport modes, development partners should align with these priorities for comprehensive mobility solutions and a broader transformation of urban transportation.
Solar boom
The distributed solar revolution tells a similar tale. In countries like South Africa, Namibia and Eswatini, large shopping centers, factories and office buildings are installing solar panels at remarkable rates. South Africa alone has seen an explosive transformation, with distributed solar capacity surging from just 500 megawatts in 2019 to five gigawatts in 2023 — a tenfold increase in four years.
Distributed solar now makes up about 15% of South Africa’s peak demand, with similar penetration levels in Namibia and Eswatini — 15% and 12% respectively. These adoption rates are rapidly catching up with those seen in developed markets like California. The fast growth has proven transformative in South Africa, where distributed solar has been one of the two key solutions to ending the country’s crippling power crisis, shaving nearly a gigawatt off average hourly demand, particularly during peak sunlight hours.
Unlike in California, this growth isn’t driven by generous government incentives or environmental consciousness — it’s a survival strategy against unreliable grids and expensive power.
Yet, this shift toward self-generation comes with risks. Across African markets, solar adoption is overwhelmingly concentrated among commercial and industrial customers, traditionally the anchor clients whose high electricity consumption and retail rates have been crucial to keeping utilities financially viable. The revenue from these customers helps subsidize residential users.
When these valuable customers start generating their own power, it creates a troubling spiral: businesses purchase less electricity, forcing utilities to spread their fixed grid costs across fewer electricity sales. This drives up costs for remaining customers, particularly affecting lower-income households who cannot afford private solar installations.
The financial strain on utilities is further compounded by technical and regulatory challenges. Most African utilities lack the technical capacity to properly manage the rising tide of grid-connected solar installations. Basic requirements — from permitting processes to technical standards for safe interconnection — are often missing or inadequately enforced.
The consequences are already emerging. In South Africa and Eswatini, utilities report increasing power quality issues in areas with high solar penetration. Without proper oversight and technical capabilities, this solar revolution risks further destabilizing Africa’s fragile grid infrastructure.
Better solutions
The path forward requires fundamental changes: moving to cost-reflective electricity rates that accurately reflect both energy use and grid services, creating clear but practical regulations and upgrading aging infrastructure.
Here again South Africa offers an example. The country has recently shifted to more cost-reflective tariffs, while formally recognizing distributed solar as a crucial part of its energy future in its recent national integrated resource plan.
Success will also require simplified technical standards and permitting processes that ensure safety without stifling adoption. Strategic investments in smart meters, advanced billing systems and distribution network improvements will also be crucial to help utilities better manage the complexities of a more distributed grid.
Africa’s innovative spirit has turned market failures into opportunities, proving that necessity can drive remarkable advances. To genuinely harness this potential, we need to look beyond short-term fixes. Policymakers, investors and innovators must come together to build systems that address the root causes of these market gaps.
By doing so, we can ensure Africa’s technological revolutions are not just bridges over gaps, but foundations for sustainable, inclusive futures.
