From Ambition to Action: Minigrid Industry Charts Course for Africa

African minigrid developers say they are ready to scale—but the systems around them are not. In a new position paper, industry leaders argue that outdated financing and regulatory structures now pose the biggest barrier to electrifying millions.

The Africa Minigrid Developers Association (AMDA) and 28 leading minigrid companies published an industry position paper this week outlining critical actions necessary to meet the ambitious goals of Mission 300, a joint initiative of the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB) to bring electricity to 300 million people in Africa by 2030.

“17 Actions for Minigrids to Catalyze Electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa” concludes that Mission 300 is achievable, but it asserts that success is only possible if immediate steps are taken to improve capital deployment and standardize policy frameworks, technical standards and regulations.

“Mission 300 has set an ambition that meaningfully confronts the scale and urgency of Africa’s electrification challenge. This paper is the industry’s response,” Olamide Niyi-Afuye, CEO of AMDA, said in a statement. “It reflects a strong alignment among minigrid CEOs who are already delivering on the ground and ready to scale. The message is clear: the sector is ready. What is now needed is capital mobilization with a clear, time-bound plan and regulatory and institutional systems that move at the same speed as the ambition.”

AMDA is an industry association with 61 members in 24 countries across Africa, including private decentralized utilities, companies that provide minigrid products and services, and approximately 70% of the region’s minigrid developers.

As of 2024, AMDA members had deployed nearly 600 minigrids, supplying power to close to one million people in rural and peri-urban areas. Together, these systems represent more than 127,000 connections and over 16.5 MW of installed capacity serving households, businesses, and public institutions.

CEOs endorsing the industry position paper include those from ANKA, Ashipa Electric, Equatorial Power, Husk and WeLight Africa.

Electrification empowers sub-Saharan Africans

Nearly 600 million Africans lack direct access to reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity. Most live in the sub-Saharan region. Mission 300 was launched last year to address this issue.

Minigrids, already in high demand in places like Zambia, Ethiopia and Nigeria, will play a key role in achieving Mission 300’s goal of universal electrification.

Sometimes referred to as remote microgrids, minigrids are typically built and operated in areas without access to a central electric grid. The systems use software to control distributed renewable energy resources like solar panels and battery storage, providing remote communities with reliable, clean and affordable power.

They can also provide bridge power until communities can be connected to the grid.

“Minigrids can catalyze industrial growth and broader economic development by supporting small manufacturing units, agro-processing plants, and cold storage facilities,” Abraham Mudasia, communications director for the Africa Minigrid Developers Association told Microgrid Knowledge, in response to emailed questions. “By delivering reliable electricity to unserved and underserved communities, they improve quality of life, foster long-term community development, and promote financial independence.”

Of the 29 countries that have signed Mission 300 Energy Compacts, 20 indicated that minigrids will be critical to their electrification strategy—serving an estimated 115 million people by 2030.

The minigrid market must grow faster

While the African minigrid market is thriving, AMDA’s “Benchmarking Africa’s Minigrids Report,” published last year, found that it’s not growing fast enough to meet Mission 300’s 2030 goal.

Regulatory bottlenecks, funding issues and supply chain problems are hindering the pace of development and driving up costs, the report said.

“17 Actions for Minigrids to Catalyze Electrification in Sub-Saharan Africa” goes a step further noting that approximately 766 minigrids would need to be installed per month over the next five years—a pace that far exceeds current deployment rates.

“Mission 300 is no longer a question of ambition. It is a test of execution,” Olu Ajala, CEO of Ashipa Electric, said in a statement.

Ashipa Electric has installed multiple community, residential, and commercial and industrial minigrids across Nigeria in recent years.

“Companies like ours are already delivering at scale. What will determine success now is whether capital, regulation and institutional processes move fast enough to match that demand,” he added.

Unlocking Africa’s electrification vision

The position paper’s 17-Step Action Plan outlines recommendations for how funders, governments and industry can rapidly align ambition with the scale, speed and structure needed to meet Africa’s electrification targets. It also sets out how early commitments could be developed into projects suitable for large-scale implementation and investment.

“What has since become clear to us is that there is a massive, massive gap between the [World] Bank’s own assessment of the potential for minigrids, and the ability to achieve that potential,” William Brent, lead author of the position paper and chief marketing officer at Husk, told Microgrid Knowledge.

Husk is a key player in the minigrid market and aims to have at least 2 GW of its solar and battery energy storage systems installed in Africa and Asia by the end of the decade.

Brent added that there is currently no clear strategy for quickly moving away from entrenched, centralized energy systems in Africa. Likewise, there is no path for transitioning beyond small-scale, low-capacity solar solutions, which may meet performance metrics but do not tackle the deeper development goal of fostering broad-based prosperity.

“With the Action Plan, we want to ensure that all stakeholders understand that unlocking the vision of an Africa where more than half of the unelectrified population is powered by minigrids is facing a pivotal moment, and requires urgent action by everyone involved,” Brent said.

Four key actions

Of the 17 actions outlined, the position paper highlights four key priorities.

1. Mobilizing capital at scale – Ensure a mix of corporate equity, subsidies and local currency debt is accessible so minigrid companies can expand within existing markets and enter new ones. Total funding needs are estimated to be between $28 billion and $46 billion.

“Project-level financing remains essential to build minigrid infrastructure, but scaling delivery at the pace [Mission 300] requires will depend on increased corporate equity, alongside enabling national frameworks, to strengthen companies’ capacity to grow, execute, and manage portfolios efficiently,” Camille André-Bataille, CEO & co-founder of ANKA, said in a statement.

2. Standardizing policy and industry practices – Align regulations, technical standards, and key performance indicators to streamline approvals, reduce transaction costs, and build investor confidence across markets.
3. Supporting commercially viable returns – Enable minigrids to earn sustainable profits through cost-reflective tariffs, reduced equipment taxes and duties and access to commercially feasible deployment areas.
4. Broadening connection targets – Include small and medium enterprises and social institutions in Mission 300 connection goals, alongside households, to support more robust and sustainable minigrid systems.

Currently, Mission 300 counts only new household connections, a focus that Brent argues overlooks the role of energy infrastructure in supporting economic growth and job creation.

Based on nearly 70 operational minigrids in Nigeria, Husk estimates that each megawatt of installed minigrid capacity supports roughly 2,700 connections across households, small businesses, schools and health clinics, benefiting more than 60,000 people, creating over 100 direct jobs and displacing diesel generation.

By excluding connections to small and medium enterprises and social institutions, the framework risks undervaluing minigrid systems and reinforcing “the past orientation toward quantity vs quality of connections,” according to Brent.

With Mission 300 targeting 300 million new connections by the end of the decade, the position paper adds to a growing debate over how electrification success is defined—and whether current metrics and market structures are aligned with the scale of investment and infrastructure needed to deliver lasting economic impact.