The BESS market is the fastest growing battery demand market globally, increasing 53% year on year in 2024 according to Rho Motion’s BESS database. Some growth has been driven by declining cell costs, which in turn has allowed BESS to enter into nascent battery markets. Africa has seen its operational and pipeline energy storage projects grow in recent years as renewable energy becomes more affordable, and the price of batteries continue to fall. Grid development of energy storage in the continent remains heavily concentrated in certain countries, while behind the meter (BTM) storage is becoming increasingly widespread.
What is currently operational?
South Africa has the largest operational capacity of grid scale projects, accounting for 90% of the total operational projects in Rho Motion’s database. The largest of these projects is the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, solar and storage project with a 1.14GWh capacity. This is far bigger than the other operational projects that have a relatively small average capacity of ~18MWh. Outside South Africa the operational projects are dotted around the continent, from Mozambique to Cote d’Ivoire.
What is being built?
South Africa again dominates the pipeline for the number of projects being built, with seven projects currently under construction. This accounts for over 60% of the total grid capacity under construction on the continent. The average size of these projects sits a ~0.26GWh, a large increase from the projects currently operational. This largely reflects the direction in which the storage market is moving more generally, with larger cell sizes allowing system sizes to increase.
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What does the future hold for storage in Africa?
Considering all the proposals and planned projects, the average size continues to increase reaching 0.38GWh in the current database. South Africa and notably Morocco have the strongest pipeline capacity followed by Egypt.
Strong potential lies in the BTM Africa market
BTM energy storge is becoming increasingly important in the African market as grid instability and falling cell prices pushes consumers towards installing storage. In South Africa, Eskom, the country’s main electricity utility, registered 69 days of load shedding in 2024, leading to widespread power shortages. While in Nigeria, the country saw 11 large scale outages in 2024 causing widespread disruption. To deal with these interferences many consumers have diesel generators, however increasingly batteries are becoming a popular option.
As well as this, the need for Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) sources is growing. As internet and mobile usage increasing in the continent the need for telecom towers also increases. Many of these installations are now opting to have batteries as a UPS allowing improved network uptime, reduced maintenance costs and renewable energy integration. From 2023 to 2024 the BTM market increased 28% in Africa, in 2025 this market is expected to increase 44%.
More Information
This data comes from Rho Motion’s ESS database, click here to find out more.
For more information about the ESS market see our research or get in touch.
Source: https://rhomotion.com/news/what-does-africas-bess-landscape-look-like/
