The World Bank now ranks off-grid solar as the cheapest way to bring electricity to at least 398 million people who still live without it. A joint report released this week by the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) and the off-grid solar industry association GOGLA treats the technology as permanent infrastructure. Systems once sold as a stopgap until the grid arrived now power households, businesses and factories, and 95% of surveyed customers still had working solar home systems four or more years after buying them. The report estimates that bringing reliable off-grid electricity to those 398 million people will take $11.4 billion between 2027 and 2030. That includes $1.3 billion a year in grants and affordability subsidies and $1.6 billion a year in equity, debt and receivables financing. It is a small but critical slice of the $3 trillion to $5 trillion in average annual energy transition investment the world needs by 2030.

The sector already supports 219,000 jobs in the companies tracked by GOGLA, with full-time employment up 29% between 2021 and 2025. Some 7.4 million people use off-grid solar to run microenterprises or other income-generating activities, generating an estimated $28 billion in additional income and savings over 15 years.

According to the report, the number of people using off-grid solar products such as solar home systems, water pumps, generators and lanterns rose by 26% over the past two years, from 118 million to 149 million. Uptake has been lopsided. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 47% of all solar home system sales in 2025 occurred in Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia, while most markets in West and Central Africa are not growing. 

Kenya remains the largest market among tracked countries, with sales jumping 61% between 2023 and 2025 to roughly 2.4 million units. High upfront costs remain the main hurdle for poorer communities. Only about a third of unelectrified households can afford an entry-level Tier 1 pay-as-you-go system, another third can do so only at a stretch, and the rest are priced out.

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That said, solar adoption has been surging across the globe thanks largely to falling costs. Chinese-made solar panels have dropped to 12 cents per watt, down from $5 to $6 per watt at the turn of the millennium, a 40- to 50-fold collapse that has reshaped the economics of energy access. 

Africa, especially, is experiencing an unprecedented solar surge, with the continent on track to install a record 17 gigawatts (GW) of capacity in 2026. That is a 45% increase year-on-year and the third consecutive record year. Some 36 of Africa’s 54 countries are expected to hit record installation volumes, and 19 countries are recording triple-digit growth, led by the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 544% and Zimbabwe at 282%. About 94% of the panels installed across Africa still come from China, though the continent’s solar panel manufacturing is set to quadruple to about 3.5 GW in 2026.

Similarly, India is undergoing a solar revolution, with installed solar capacity reaching 164.59 GW as of July 31, 2026. India is also rolling out ambitious household solar programs. PM Surya Ghar (Muft Bijli Yojana) targets rooftop solar for 10 million households and had reached about 5.16 million by mid-August. The program pairs capital subsidies with low-interest financing to deliver up to 300 units of free electricity a month. It provides up to ?78,000, about $820, in subsidies for residential systems of 3 kW or larger, along with access to collateral-free loans at roughly 7% interest.

India’s neighbor, Pakistan, is undergoing one of the fastest consumer-led solar revolutions in the world, and it is reshaping the national power grid. Driven by soaring grid tariffs and an influx of ultra-cheap Chinese photovoltaic panels, industrial giants, small businesses and millions of households are defecting from the national grid to secure affordable, stable power. Pakistan’s cement giant Bestway Cement has deployed 26 MW of solar capacity at its Chakwal plant, where solar now supplies more than a quarter of the facility’s power, with another 6.34 MW due by the end of the year.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

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