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The Youth Sustainable Development Network and the Africa Minigrid Developers Association will run four to six week remote placements from later this year, across regulatory coordination, research, sector support and access to capital. Whether it grows depends on an evaluation neither organisation has run yet.

Installed capacity now stands at 4,576MW, of which 841MW is solar, and Kariba’s usable storage has roughly doubled in a year. Almost all of the additional units drawn last year went to the mines, and Open Access is now the mechanism deciding who is served first.

Cost savings of around 42 per cent came from drawing on Guinean hydro across the regional loop instead of burning imported fuel. Guinea-Bissau’s EAGB has moved from a monthly deficit of roughly one million dollars to a positive balance, and the market both now sell in went live this year.

The distribution carries 50% subsidies and tax exemptions, and reaches rural communities alongside public bodies. It arrives while the IEA warns that the fuel underneath every LPG programme on the continent is exposed to a shipping route thousands of miles away.

Africa is inextricably linked to the global decarbonising future, but the cycle must be broken that has defined this transition for eons: exporting unprocessed lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, phosphates and graphite while importing finished batteries at a premium. The Lithium-Ion Battery Value Chain is brutally clear. Mining captures just $11 billion, while value-added segments and end-user markets i.e. Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Battery energy storage systems (BESS) send a minimum $7 trillion beyond the continent’s shores.

The IEA’s 2026 Hydrogen Review finds the continent’s most advanced project targeting engineering design in the third quarter of this year and a final decision in 2027. Two of the largest developments have stalled for want of buyers, while the cost of capital does more to decide outcomes than sunshine does.

Kinshasa’s council of ministers cleared the Lualaba site in February, targeting $2bn of private capital across 900 hectares. Zimbabwe has built the continent’s first lithium sulphate plant under an export ban. The cathode and cell stages that carry most of the margin remain unbuilt everywhere on the continent.

The directive took effect on 1 July and requires the twelve companies to seek approval before spending money set aside for infrastructure and market debt. State regulators, the Federal Ministry of Power and lawmakers have all been drawn into a dispute over who now decides.

The national compact signed under Mission 300 commits Harare to reaching every household by 2030, and sets out how far the utility must move to do it. Private distribution and retail licences were due in the first quarter of this year, opening a market ZETDC has held alone.

Shell and Equinor have been targeting a host government agreement on the $42 billion Tanzania LNG project, with first production expected in the early 2030s. The country opened 26 blocks in its first licensing round in more than a decade, and its 2,115MW hydropower plant now supplies four countries.