A Decentralised Revolution that could be of Huge Benefit to African Economies

More than three-quarters of African firms experience outages; two-fifths say electricity is the main constraint on their business. If other sub-Saharan African countries had enjoyed power as reliable as South Africa’s from 1995 to 2007, then the continent’s rate of real gdp growth per person would have been two percentage points higher, more than doubling the actual rate, according to one academic paper. Since then South Africa has also had erratic electricity. So-called “load-shedding” is probably the main reason why the economy has shrunk in four of the past eight quarters. Solar power is increasingly seen as the solution. Globally most solar pv is built by utilities, but in Africa 65% of new capacity over the past two years has come from large firms contracting directly with developers. 

THE ECONOMIST