Industry is the biggest driver of solar energy adoption in South Africa. This was highlighted by Stellenbosch University Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies senior researcher Dr François Rozon, at the Solar & Storage Live Cape Town 2025 conference, on Thursday.

Industry, he reported, had installed 4 GW of solar generating capacity, so far. This private generation capacity was double the amount installed by the country's independent power producers, for public consumption.

"This is a major acceleration," he affirmed. "Right now, the economics are driving it." Companies could get pay-back for their solar installations in as little as two to three years. 

"Peak demand in South Africa is now 20% lower than it was a few years ago, " he pointed out. This decline was due to the roll-out of private solar power capacity. 

Having such large-scale solar plants at the local level greatly reduced the risk from problems with the grid. But when these local plants were integrated into the grid, it increased resiliency and made the whole grid much stronger. 

Interlinking national grids also increased resilience for everyone. That was the situation in Europe, but not in Southern Africa. He noted that the international transmission connection between South Africa and Namibia allowed South Africa to export power to its neighbour, but not to import power. Meanwhile, Namibia was developing major solar power plants. He knew there was a plan to establish a power import connection between the two countries, to allow South Africa to access this energy, but he did not know the timescale for it.

Use of solar power to provide electricity to communities was a very different thing to power for industry and commerce. In much of the rest of Africa, the levels of electrification were much lower than in South Africa. Although electricity from microgrids tended to be more expensive than grid electricity, in many rural areas across the continent, it was a choice of microgrids or nothing.

He highlighted that such microgrids could transform the lives of the people in the communities concerned, including by stimulating local economies' development. He cited a case in Kenya, where microgrid-generated electricity allowed a mobile grain processing unit to go to a village and process the farmers' grain, instead of them having to pay for it to be shipped elsewhere for processing. 

Closer to home, he praised Cape Town's policy of buying power from industries which produced surplus solar power. This reduced the cost of energy in the city.

"I celebrate the fact that Cape Town is allowing these bilateral contracts," he enthused. "I wish all municipalities would understand this. This, we need to see more of."