Solar-powered battery swapping. Rent-to-own rooftop solar. Developing clean energy solutions in Africa requires creativity to succeed in a place with limited resources and a diverse range of cultures, according to Canadian companies working there.

But those that have made it work say the sunny continent with a fast-growing population and where four in 10 people have no access to electricity is full of opportunities to make money and make a difference.

Africa has embraced solar. About 4.5 gigawatts of new solar capacity was installed across the continent last year — an increase of 54 per cent, marking a record year of growth, according to a new Global Solar Council report released in February. 

Just over half was in utility-scale solar farms, many of them grid-connected and commissioned by governments.

The other 44 per cent was in “distributed” privately financed rooftop systems — often in areas without reliable grid connections — though this number is likely undercounted, according to the report.

The Global Solar Council says these are now “a core growth engine” for solar in Africa, but have trouble attracting public and international investment. And private financing often fails to meet the needs of households and businesses installing small rooftop solar.

Still, some solar companies, including Canadian firms, are finding creative ways to get distributed solar into African communities.

Rent-to-own rooftop solar

Toronto-based Solar Panda is one of the companies supplying such small rooftop systems.

“Going from where you’ve never had access to electricity to having it is incredibly life changing,” said Brett Bergman, the company’s chief operating officer.

Bergmann recounted a time he was sent out in Kenya to do market research interviews for the company’s rent-to-own rooftop solar packages.

A customer he had never met hugged him on sight for making it possible for his family to turn on LED lights. “He said, ‘Thank you, because I don’t have to worry about my children coughing from the kerosene [lamp] fumes when they’re doing their homework at night.'” Bergmann said he still tears up thinking of that moment.

As of 2022, the International Energy Agency reported that 600 million people in Africa, or 43 per cent of the population, had no access to electricity. 

Even in places that officially have grid access, “it’s unreliable, it’s really expensive,” Bergmann said. 

Solar Panda offers Canadian-designed rent-to-own rooftop solar systems that include a battery and compatible appliances such as LED lights, radios and TVs, for a small deposit and payments of as little as 50 cents a day through local mobile money apps.

The company launched in Kenya in 2017, and has just expanded to three new countries: Zambia, Benin and Senegal. 

The systems are sold and often installed by one of thousands of field agents operating out of the company’s 60 shops.

It takes one to three years of monthly payments for families to pay off the solar panels.

“And they’ve got free electricity from then on,” Bergmann said.

He said some of the systems the company sold in its first year, 2018, are still running — the solar panels can last many years, but the batteries degrade more quickly, reducing the hours of electricity that can be stored. The company does sell low-cost refurbished replacement components for those who need them.

Solar Panda says it’s now powering 400,000 homes for two million people. 

Jaza Energy: Solar-powered battery swapping

Halifax-based Jaza Energy has a different solution. Its solar panels go up on “solar charging hubs” instead of homes to charge lithium-ion battery packs that customers rent to power lights and TVs and charge their phones. When the batteries are depleted, customers come back and swap them for new ones, about once every three days.

CEO and founder Jeff Schnurr, who’s originally from Sackville, N.B., worked in rural Tanzania with a tree-planting organization he started called Community Forests International and began hearing about other local concerns: “Someone said, ‘Trees are great, but where can I charge my phone?'”  

He wondered if there was a way to provide electricity to households that earn $1 to $1.50 per day. 

Options like rooftop solar or connected systems seemed complicated to sell and manage in this context.

So the company designed a solar battery-swapping system, with research and development support from the federal government’s Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

The battery pack was designed to be low-cost, but light and rugged enough for children and adults to carry on bikes, even in the rain.

Initially, customers complained that the battery was too small. Schnurr and his team eventually realized they meant it was too expensive for its size, and ended up making it smaller and cheaper. “The reality is customers that live day by day have a very high bar for what they spend their money on,” he said.

The company rents out its batteries from solar charging hubs staffed by local women, branding them “Jaza Stars.” Schnurr said that has been transformative for many who didn’t have a lot of opportunities and are now well known in their communities.

Four years ago, the company expanded from Tanzania into Nigeria. Schnurr says it’s now bringing power to more than a million people, and plans to keep expanding.

The scattered solar transition

While distributed solar is taking off alongside grid-scale systems, the Global Solar Council says financing models haven’t kept pace with this shift — 82 per cent of clean energy finance in Africa still comes from public and development sources and is designed to fund utility-scale projects. Even private funding often doesn’t meet the needs of households or businesses, which need smaller, shorter loans in local currency.

Some companies are able to fill this gap with creative financing models.

Bergmann says that his company operates like a consumer goods company, a bank and a utility all in one — it effectively offers loans that can be paid through a daily payment plan, ensuring payment with the ability to temporarily shut off a customer’s solar system and a technology system that integrates with local mobile money providers to process 100,000 payments per day .

But financial constraints mean that most companies providing solar in Africa are foreign owned, according to Nathanael Ojong, an associate professor in the department of social science at York University in Toronto

“They have the financial firepower,” he said, while also noting that Chinese companies, which supply most of the solar panels, have been more prominent in recent years

Some homegrown solar companies have emerged in Burkina Faso, South Africa and Nigeria. But Ojong says “they are in the minority, really.”

Ojong has been researching the spread of small-scale, distributed solar in Africa, and is about to publish a book called Solar Power Capitalism. 

He said there’s no doubt distributed solar is playing a “key role” in expanding access to electricity in Africa, while providing local jobs and economic benefits.

But there can be downsides.

In some cases, African customers get locked into solar contracts they can’t afford. 

In others, getting access to the national power grid may be better for providing electricity to a community, and distributed solar may ease the pressure on governments to expand grid access as quickly as they otherwise would, Ojong said.

He acknowledged there are many places, especially in remote areas, where distributed solar is the most feasible solution.

The continent’s population is set to grow 63 per cent to 2.5 billion by 2050, and at that point, it’s expected to be home to more than one in four people on Earth. People like Bergmann say that makes it a great place to sell solar, despite the challenges. “The reality that we see there is that Africa is the … biggest growth opportunity in the world.”