Seeds of Opportunity: The African Growth Series
September 2025
In this month's issue, you will learn more about:
- AFRICA OPPORTUNITY: South Africa’s Battery Storage Build-Out is Creating an Investable, Industrial-Scale Market
- Africa Opportunity: AI-Driven Innovation Gains Momentum Through Google’s Startup Accelerator
- Africa Opportunity: Will Africa Catch the Next Wave of Global Renewable Growth?
- AFRICA OPPORTUNITY: Repositioning Landlocked African Economies as “Land-Linked” Trade Hubs
- AFRICA OPPORTUNITY: A Nuclear Comeback Fuelled by AI Innovation
- UPCOMING EVENT: Carbon Markets Africa Summit 2025
AFRICA OPPORTUNITY: South Africa’s Battery Storage Build-Out is Creating an Investable, Industrial-Scale Market
Through the Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (BESIPPPP), South Africa is emerging as one of the continent’s most dynamic battery markets. The recently awarded Haru project, a 103 MW/412 MWh facility developed by Scatec, marks a major milestone. Located in the Northern Cape, Haru will enable the evening release of solar energy and help stabilise a region rich in renewables but short on transmission flexibility.
However, more than a grid solution, this battery storage boom is an immense industrial opportunity. With over 1,400 MWh of capacity already awarded, South Africa is laying the groundwork for a scalable battery ecosystem that can attract investment across engineering, assembly, software, and systems integration.
More importantly, South Africa’s progress is creating proof points for the continent. As battery storage becomes essential to balancing intermittent generation, ensuring grid resilience, and powering mineral value chains, other countries, from Egypt to Namibia, are beginning to shape their own storage investment frameworks. The race to localise storage infrastructure, deepen capacity in systems integration, and link storage to green hydrogen and e-mobility strategies is only just beginning.
As this momentum builds, the real opportunity is not just megawatts, but markets. Can African countries leverage this shift to develop new industrial capabilities, embed energy security into strategic corridors, and ensure storage becomes a platform for manufacturing, not just procurement?
AFRICA OPPORTUNITY: AI-Driven Innovation Gains Momentum Through Google’s Startup Accelerator
Africa’s tech ecosystem continues to gain international recognition and investment. The 2025 Google for Startups Accelerator: Africa cohort highlights this momentum, selecting 15 startups from across the continent that are leveraging AI to address deeply local challenges in sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, compliance, logistics, and finance.
Startups like Shamba Records (Kenya) and TOLBI (Senegal) are deploying AI for climate-smart agriculture, helping smallholder farmers with market access, crop protection, and predictive yield insights. Regulon (Ghana) and E-doc Online (Nigeria) are simplifying regulatory compliance and credit analysis using AI-driven automation, while YeneHealth (Ethiopia) and Myltura (Nigeria) are improving access to remote and affordable healthcare.
The diversity of countries represented, from Rwanda and Ethiopia to Nigeria and Ghana, reinforces the depth of talent emerging across the continent and signals that AI innovation in Africa is being built from the ground up to solve context-specific problems at scale. The broader opportunity lies in enabling these startups to grow beyond pilot stages, with appropriate policy support, financing pathways, and infrastructure for AI deployment. Can Africa ensure that this next wave of AI-led innovation delivers inclusive, market-ready solutions?
AFRICA OPPORTUNITY: Will Africa Catch the Next Wave of Global Renewable Growth?
Global electricity demand is expected to surge in 2026, with renewables overtaking coal for the first time to become the world’s largest source of power generation. This shift is being led by rapid deployment in markets like China, the EU, and the US, where policy and investment pipelines are aligning to accelerate transition.
In Africa, the opportunity is vast, but the current installed capacity tells a more cautious story. According to the IEA, South Africa leads the continent with 11.13 GW of renewable energy capacity, followed by Egypt, Morocco, and Ethiopia, together accounting for the majority of Africa’s clean energy rollout so far. But to truly participate in the next wave of global demand, these pockets of momentum need to be matched by scale, grid investment, and cross-border collaboration.
Africa’s growing energy needs, abundant solar and wind resources, and increasing climate vulnerability make this not only a sustainability imperative but a strategic economic one. The question is whether enough projects, and the infrastructure to support them, will move fast enough to shift Africa from potential follower to active driver of global clean energy trends.
What will it take for Africa to lead (not just participate) in the next phase of the global energy transformation?
AFRICA OPPORTUNITY: Repositioning Landlocked African Economies as “Land-Linked” Trade Hubs
Africa’s 16 landlocked countries face some of the steepest trade barriers in the world. Transport costs are 50% higher than the global average, and imports take twice as long to arrive. Despite being home to more than 7% of the world’s population, these nations account for just 1.2% of global trade.
UNCTAD argues that targeted reforms, regional cooperation, and investment in infrastructure could flip this script. The vision is to transform landlocked economies into connected trade hubs, using regional transport corridors as the backbone. Corridors like the North–South, Central, and Abidjan–Lagos routes already provide vital arteries, but there is untapped potential in strengthening emerging links such as the Walvis Bay Corridor, the Lamu Port–South Sudan–Ethiopia Corridor, and the Central African Corridor.
The power of multimodal corridors that integrate rail, road, and port systems across national boundaries goes beyond faster transit. By improving access to regional markets, they can attract industrial investment, spur agro-processing, and enable countries such as Uganda, Zambia, and Niger to process more value locally rather than exporting raw materials.
Connectivity is not just a matter of laying track or paving roads. It requires harmonised customs, digital border systems, and policies that encourage regional value chain participation. Done right, these measures could cut transport times, reduce costs, and create opportunities for manufacturing, agro-processing, and services to flourish in economies that have long been at the periphery of trade growth.
How can Africa accelerate corridor development and digital readiness fast enough to connect its most geographically disadvantaged economies to the heart of continental and global markets?
AFRICA OPPORTUNITY: A Nuclear Comeback Fuelled by AI Innovation
Africa’s energy landscape is at a turning point. Nuclear power, long considered out of reach for many African economies, is regaining momentum as a dependable pathway to clean, large-scale, and long-term energy security. From Egypt’s El Dabaa plant under construction to South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria advancing readiness programmes with the IAEA, nuclear is no longer a distant prospect but is set to become an active part of Africa’s energy planning.
But the real game-changer lies in how AI is poised to transform the way Africa builds, operates, and sustains nuclear capacity. Beyond technical efficiency, AI can address the continent’s biggest nuclear challenges: skills shortages, operational safety, and long-term plant management. AI-powered cognitive systems and machine vision can assist with complex inspections. Exoskeletons and collaborative robotics can augment the workforce, reduce physical strain and improve precision in high-risk environments. Predictive AI can extend plant life cycles, enabling safer and more efficient operations for decades longer.
Together, nuclear and AI represent more than an energy solution—they form a foundation for Africa’s industrial future. Reliable, large-scale power can unlock heavy industries, digital economies, and advanced manufacturing, while AI ensures that these nuclear systems are not only built but sustained in ways that enhance safety, resilience, and workforce capability.
The question now is not whether Africa should explore nuclear, but how quickly it can leverage AI to overcome adoption barriers and position nuclear power as a cornerstone of its development agenda.
UPCOMING EVENT: Carbon Markets Africa Summit 2025
⏳ 40 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨! The countdown to the Carbon Markets Africa Summit 2025 is on.
Don’t miss Africa’s leading platform for shaping high-integrity, investable carbon markets. Secure your place today and be part of the change.
CMAS 2025 will take place from October 21st to 23rd in Johannesburg. This event will bring together African governments, project developers, investors, and global experts for actionable dialogue, technical workshops, and high-level roundtables focused on unlocking carbon value.
👉 Register today to help shape a just, transparent, and investable carbon market for Africa: https://www.carbonmarketsafrica.com/register
To find out more about opportunities in Africa, please get in touch with Lynne Martin.
Lynne Martin
Rebecca Mabika