Falling Battery Prices Expose Africa’s Energy Storage Investment Gap
Stationary battery pack prices dropped to around $70 per kilowatt-hour in 2025, representing a 45 per cent year-on-year decline, according to BloombergNEF.
The figures were highlighted in the latest edition of ESI Africa Industry Insights: Energy & Storage Volume 5 (2026), which examines the widening gap between increasingly affordable battery technologies and the financing, regulation and infrastructure planning required to accelerate their deployment across Africa.
According to the publication, the continent needs to address these challenges to maximise renewable energy generation, improve grid stability and attract investment in energy storage infrastructure.
Nicolette Pombo-van Zyl, Editor-in-Chief of ESI Africa, said energy storage had become essential to the development of the continent’s power sector.
“It is now the part that decides whether a project gets financed, whether a grid stays stable after sunset and whether the clean energy already being generated is actually used.,” she said.
Pombo-van Zyl added that capital, regulation and data had yet to catch up with the growing importance of energy storage.
The publication examines battery storage economics, including South African modelling that identifies lithium iron phosphate batteries as a leading option for stationary applications compared with competing chemistries.
It also explores how deployment scale, battery degradation in hot climates, financing costs, import tariffs and freight charges influence the commercial viability of storage projects.
Emerging battery technologies, their implications for Africa’s mineral value chains, cybersecurity risks and long-duration storage solutions also feature in the report.
The publication further highlights the growth of distributed solar power across the continent.
According to Ember, approximately 26 gigawatts of solar capacity was installed across Africa between 2023 and 2025, with utility-scale and off-grid figures accounting for only about a quarter of the total.
The report said better registration and data collection could help energy planners understand the scale of distributed solar installations and their implications for electricity networks.
It also highlights developments linking energy storage to renewable energy financing, including Scatec’s Obelisk project in Egypt and Mulilo’s Hartebeesfontein battery storage project.
Pombo-van Zyl said further progress would depend on decisions by regulators, utilities and financiers regarding how storage services were valued, how connected infrastructure was protected and how quickly projects could be prepared to attract investment.
“Battery prices have done their part,” she said, adding that the remaining challenges could be addressed with solutions already available to the sector.
The publication was produced in partnership with Envusa Energy, NOA Group and Lyra Energy and is available for free download to subscribers and non-subscribers.
