Africa is leapfrogging legacy electrical infra models, and likely has no need for the legacy model of centralized generation and long haul transmission to load centers.
I recently bought 4 lifepo4 12v 100ah ~1200 wh for $159 off Amazon as a retail customer. Battery storage is indeed cheap and accessible to the average person. Pair it with new 24% efficient solar panels and you can see why there's little to be gained by running expensive lines to distribute power when it can be sent everywhere wirelessly.
It's not too different to how developing counties rolled out wireless Internet and gained a huge benefit without much infrastructure investment.
Indeed, and that is current state; renewables and battery manufacturing continues to ramp, which will encourage further cost declines. This is objectively good, it democratizes low carbon, cheap energy.
https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
https://developmentreimagined.com/infographic-exploring-afri...
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h/hourly (center map on Africa)
Africa is leapfrogging legacy electrical infra models, and likely has no need for the legacy model of centralized generation and long haul transmission to load centers.
(the battery costs in the Our World in Data citation are already out of date, and as of 2023, the average global price of batteries was $95/kWh, see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-07-09/china-... | https://archive.today/DklaA for more)