Africa’s electricity system is changing from one built around passive consumers to one in which businesses, households and even municipalities can generate, store, consume and export electricity.
The rise of the prosumer, a customer who both consumes and produces electricity, creates opportunities for greater energy resilience and private investment.
But it also introduces a fundamental challenge: electricity networks designed for power to flow in one direction must now accommodate energy moving both ways.
During a discussion on the prosumer revolution session at ENLIT Africa 2026, energy specialists, regulators and municipal representatives examined what this transition means for utilities, customers and regulators across the continent.
At the heart of the discussion was a simple question: how can the needs of utilities and customers be met at the same time?
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The transition is not limited to households and businesses. A case study presented during the session demonstrated how municipal infrastructure can also participate in the prosumer model.
At the Hartenbos wastewater treatment works in Mossel Bay, a microgrid was developed to provide greater energy security for critical municipal infrastructure.
The system combines a 2.56MWp photovoltaic plant, a 4.8MWh battery energy storage system, 1.6MW of diesel generation and the municipal grid. The treatment works itself has a constant load of approximately 700kW.
The original objective was resilience. Power interruptions at wastewater treatment facilities can have serious consequences because pumps and treatment processes need to remain operational.
Interruptions can result in untreated effluent building up and potentially entering rivers and freshwater systems.
The microgrid was therefore designed so that the wastewater treatment works could operate independently when necessary. However, changing electricity conditions created another opportunity.
As load shedding reduced, the system was reprogrammed from primarily providing emergency energy security to performing energy arbitrage.
This means the battery can be charged when cheaper electricity or solar generation is available and discharged during more expensive morning and evening peak periods.
According to this case study presentation, the municipality had already started seeing savings during the lower-cost tariff months following commissioning.
The example illustrates how distributed generation can evolve beyond backup power. “The heart of the system is the energy management system,” the presenter explained, describing how solar, storage, diesel and grid electricity are brought together according to the principle of using the available resource at the best time and the best cost. Excess generation can also be exported into the municipality’s local network.
For DeVilliers Botha, co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of SolarAfrica, distributed energy presents a wider opportunity for the continent.
He compared the potential transformation with Africa’s telecommunications development. “Africa has jumped the landline in the telecom space. Africa can also jump the grid by having these type of microgrids out there.”
Rather than depending entirely on the expansion of traditional centralised electricity networks, distributed systems could allow businesses, communities and public infrastructure to generate electricity closer to where it is consumed.
But integrating growing numbers of these systems requires changes in the way electricity networks are planned and operated.
Dr Dalal Helmi of the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company highlighted one of the fundamental challenges facing utilities.
“The current electricity system was designed for one-way flow and passive customers,” she said. “Prosumers indeed break this model.” Historically, electricity moved from centralised power stations through transmission and distribution networks before reaching customers.
Distributed solar, batteries and other generation technologies change that model because electricity can now flow from the customer back into the network.
According to Helmi, this means utilities must reconsider not only how networks operate but also how their costs are recovered. “If we do not, as a utility, redefine the needs and the fair contribution and obligations, we are going to be in a risk,” she said.
The transition also changes the technical operation of networks. “We are moving from top-down approach to the bottom-up approach,” Helmi explained, adding that the shift affects network operation, control and protection philosophy.
As distributed generation expands, electricity distributors also need to know where generation systems are connected.
Dr Silas Mulaudzi, sustainable energy specialist at the South African Local Government Association, said the uptake of embedded generation is increasing across residential, commercial and industrial customer segments.
For municipalities and other distributors, registration provides visibility of what is happening on the network.
Botha explained that registration allows utilities to plan for changes such as voltage rises caused by generation being injected into parts of the network that were originally designed primarily for electricity consumption.
“The principles for networks are to properly plan and to know where these systems are in their network,” he said.
Mulaudzi warned that treating a bidirectional network as though it were still operating in one direction creates significant risks. “Treating bi-directional electrical grid like a one-way street is quite dangerous. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
He identified potential consequences including voltage spikes, frequency mismatches, damage to electricity infrastructure and risks to workers.
The traditional assumption that electricity flows only from the utility to the consumer, he argued, can no longer remain the basis for operating networks with growing numbers of prosumers.
Technical changes alone will not determine how quickly the prosumer market develops.
For Babatunde Osadare of Ikeja Electric in Nigeria, predictable regulation is central to attracting the investment required. “Ultimately, what helps to sustain any investment decision making is policy and regulation,” he said.
“Those regulations must be very clear, they must be predictable, and they must be based on trust.”
Prosumer infrastructure represents a long-term investment. Businesses and households therefore need confidence that the rules governing participation will not change unpredictably after capital has already been committed.
Osadare said regulatory frameworks should be developed with stakeholder engagement so that participants understand both the requirements and potential benefits.
“It is clear regulatory certainty that brings capital into any sector,” he said. “And when you have capital coming in, that’s how you get to build infrastructure.”
A further challenge is ensuring that the transition remains financially sustainable. Even customers generating much of their own electricity can continue to rely on the network for connection, backup supply and other grid services.
This creates questions about who should pay for maintaining electricity infrastructure as customers increasingly generate their own energy.
Helmi warned that poorly designed systems risk shifting network costs onto customers who cannot invest in distributed generation. “Getting this right indeed is not just technical, it’s a matter of equity and sustainability,” she said.
The discussion therefore highlighted the need to separate different elements of electricity pricing more clearly and consider the value that distributed resources can provide to the wider system.
This could eventually include compensating distributed energy resources not only for electricity supplied but also for services that support the grid.
The prosumer revolution is therefore about considerably more than installing rooftop solar. It requires changes in network design, metering, tariffs, regulation and the relationship between utilities and their customers.
It also cannot happen overnight. As the panel discussion concluded, the transition was repeatedly described as a journey.
Customers need incentives to participate. Utilities need visibility over the resources connected to their networks.
Regulators need to provide certainty while ensuring fairness. And electricity systems need to evolve technically to manage power flowing in multiple directions.
What is already becoming clear is that the traditional distinction between electricity producer and electricity consumer is weakening.
As customers increasingly generate, store and export electricity, the central question for Africa’s energy sector will no longer simply be how much electricity consumers use.
It will be how utilities, regulators and prosumers work together as participants in the same increasingly decentralised electricity system.
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