CAPE TOWN --&nbspBattery prices are falling, but investment in energy storage across Africa is struggling to keep pace. The latest ESI Africa Industry Insights: Energy & Storage Volume 5 (2026) (https://apo-opa.co/3UANmwN) examines the gap between increasingly affordable technologies and the financing, regulation and infrastructure planning needed to support deployment. According to BloombergNEF, stationary battery pack prices fell to around US$70/kWh in 2025, a 45% year-on-year decline. Yet of the US$13.84 billion in energy transition investment Africa attracted in 2025, tracked by Electron Intelligence, just US$666 million, less than 5%, went towards storage and flexibility. For Nicolette Pombo-van Zyl, Editor-in-Chief of ESI Africa, storage has become essential to energy development. “It is now 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. The industry's challenge is that capital, regulation and data have not yet caught up with that reality,” says Pombo-van Zyl. Understanding storage economics and infrastructure needs The publication examines battery storage economics, including South African modelling that places lithium iron phosphate ahead of competing chemistries for stationary applications. It also considers how deployment scale, degradation in hot climates, financing costs, import tariffs and freight affect project viability. Emerging battery technologies and their potential implications for Africa’s mineral value chains feature alongside cybersecurity risks and long-duration storage solutions. The volume also examines Africa’s expanding distributed solar market. According to Ember, approximately 26GW of solar was installed across Africa between 2023 and 2025, with only a quarter accounted for in utility-scale and off-grid figures. Improved registration and data could help planners understand this growth and its impact on electricity networks. Connecting investment with delivery The African Infrastructure Elites section highlights the growing role of storage in renewable energy financing, featuring developments including Scatec’s Obelisk project in Egypt and Mulilo’s Hartebeesfontein battery storage project. “Battery prices have done their part. What happens next depends on decisions that sit with regulators, utilities and financiers around how storage is valued for the services it provides, how it is protected as connected infrastructure, and how quickly projects are prepared to the point where capital can move. Those are solvable problems, and the sector already has the tools to solve them,” says Pombo-van Zyl. Published in partnership with Envusa Energy, NOA Group and Lyra Energy, the Energy & Storage Volume is available for free download to subscribers and non-subscribers. Download the volume (https://apo-opa.co/3UANmwN) These challenges will also inform discussions at VUKA Group’s C&I Energy + Storage Summit Johannesburg, taking place on 28–29 October 2026 at The Maslow Hotel, Sandton. The Summit brings together commercial and industrial energy users, developers and financiers to explore storage investment, energy procurement and cost certainty. Find out more about the Summit (https://apo-opa.co/3UaUmA7)