The size of African renewables projects has ballooned in recent years. 

• This is especially true for solar & wind, though less so for geothermal & hydropower. 

• Investment funds increasingly drive the former, while African governments fail to boost pet projects among the latter.  

The latest: The past month has seen further leaps toward mega-projects. Many are on a par with some of the largest in Asia. 

Solar side: In early July, SolarAfrica Energy started construction on the first phase of its 1 GW SunCentral solar park in South Africa's Northern Cape. 

• The project is key to the coal-fed country’s aim for net-zero energy systems by 2050. 

• Solar currently represents 9.5% of South Africa's 65 GW energy mix.

Even bigger: Industrial partners, including Africoast and Golden Sunshine, trumpeted co-developing a 6 GW pipeline of South African solar and wind energy projects.

• In the meantime, Ghana finished installing Africa’s largest floating solar system. 

• And DR Congo is to start the largest mini-grid project in Africa. 

• While Egypt said it’ll get 58% of its power from renewables by 2040, up from 12% now. 

Wind in sails: Egypt affirmed plans to build a $10 billion, 10 GW wind farm, one of the world's largest, to be completed by 2032. 

• The so-far largest African wind farm, Kenya’s Lake Turkana, has 0.31 GW.

And more: Voltalia signed a deal to develop 2.5 GW of solar and wind capacity in Egypt.

• Numbers of this size were once rarely heard outside African hydropower. 

• Now GW-size announcements are made monthly.

The drivers: What’s behind this is the subject of much debate. We’ll assess the arguments. 

Geo-politics: It’s easy to point to competition between China and Russia on one side, and America and its allies on the other. Throw in references to war-fuelled oil price hikes too. 

• But we don’t see that as a substantial factor. 

• The capital coming to Africa is rarely directed by state leaders. 

• Nor is it primarily American, Russian and Chinese. 

• A lot of the money is EU & Arab, only in part linked to fuel prices rises.

Attention economy: Another popular explanation is inspired by media coverage. Is the AI boom fuelling demand for power-hungry new data centres, and has last year’s high-profile Africa Climate Summit opened the floodgates?

• This misunderstands the long-term nature of investing. 

• Year-old trends have not yet resulted in billion-dollar projects. 

• Though useful, their impact so far is minor. 

Actual drivers: Instead, enduring changes on the supply and demand side of African energy are key. They can be summed up as follows: 

• A boom in green hydrogen and electric vehicles has shifted long-term demand curves. 

• And a decline in Chinese hardware prices due to state-funded overcapacity has tilted supply curves. 

Available capital: The other main driver is a structural shift in the nature of the capital invested in Africa. 

• Many global investors now find it easiest to raise funds labelled “green”, and among green opportunities in Africa few have scale to absorb capital like renewables. 

• And fund-managed capital increasingly dwarfs African state spending, not least given a sovereign debt crisis. 

• That explains part of the shift from large hydro and geothermal projects (long championed by governments) to often off-grid solar and wind, favoured by foreign investors, along with the hardware price decline mentioned above. 

Zoom out: If this all sounds a little too good, fear not, there are plenty of challenges left. 

• Egypt may be investing heavily in green generation but its grid infrastructure is failing. 

• And this isn’t the first time Egypt has announced a 10 GW wind farm, and then put it off due to land right disputes. 

• Meanwhile, an ambitious $30 billion (!) power line from Morocco to Britain struggles with cash and permits.