Falling battery prices have yet to translate into significant investment in energy storage across Africa, with funding constraints, regulatory gaps and inadequate infrastructure planning limiting the deployment of technologies needed to support renewable energy growth.

According to the latest ESI Africa Industry Insights: Energy & Storage Volume 5 (2026), stationary battery pack prices fell to about $70 per kilowatt-hour in 2025, representing a 45 per cent year-on-year decline, based on figures from BloombergNEF.

However, only $666 million of the $13.84 billion invested in Africa’s energy transition in 2025 went into energy storage and flexibility, accounting for less than five per cent of the total, according to data tracked by Electron Intelligence.

The report highlighted the disconnect between the declining cost of battery technologies and the investment required to scale up storage capacity across the continent.

Editor-in-Chief of ESI Africa, Nicolette Pombo-van Zyl, said energy storage had become a critical factor in determining the viability of energy projects, grid stability and the effective use of renewable electricity.

“Storage has become 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 storage in Africa’s energy sector.

The publication examined the economics of battery storage, including modelling in South Africa that identifies lithium iron phosphate (LFP) as a leading option among competing battery chemistries for stationary applications.

It also assesses factors affecting project profitability, including deployment scale, battery degradation in hot climates, financing costs, import tariffs and freight charges.

The report further considered emerging battery technologies, their implications for Africa’s mineral value chains, cybersecurity risks and long-duration energy storage solutions.

These issues are increasingly important as African countries seek to expand renewable energy capacity while addressing electricity supply challenges and the intermittency of solar and wind power.

The publication also drew attention to the rapid expansion of distributed solar energy across the continent, which presented additional challenges for electricity planning and grid management.