# Africa's Battery Storage Opportunity - Energy Storage Africa

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/transmission-7044890/africa-s-battery-storage-opportunity-energy-storage-africa
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/transmission-7044890/africa-s-battery-storage-opportunity-energy-storage-africa.md
Podcast: [Transmission](https://stenobird.com/podcast/transmission-7044890)
Published: 2026-03-31T06:00:26+00:00
Episode link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/africa-s-battery-storage-opportunity-energy-storage-africa--71013376
Audio file: https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71013376/053834af318aa3a979bd74afa61360408b4f307f.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/transmission-7044890/episodes/africa-s-battery-storage-opportunity-energy-storage-africa
Duration seconds: 2507

## Resource

Battery storage in Africa is one of the most misunderstood opportunities in global energy. Only 8% of the continent’s hydro power has been tapped. In Malawi, just 14% of the population is connected to the grid. Africa needs to add an estimated 100 GW of capacity in the next decade and the fastest way is with renewables and storage. Michael Cupit develops BESS projects in Malawi and Kenya, and he’s spent years working inside the gap between how these markets look from the outside and how they actually operate on the ground.In this episode of Transmission, Ed Porter sits down with Michael to break down the real risk picture in Sub-Saharan Africa: why mid-to-high-teen IRRs are the reality, how 20-year capacity payment contracts compare to merchant BESS in Europe, and what it actually takes to get a project from bare earth to operational - a journey that took eight years in Malawi.They cover: The two biggest misconceptions about doing business in Africa How South Africa, Malawi, and Kenya's grids differ and where batteries fit in each The role of DFIs, MIGA guarantees, and multilateral risk wrappers in making projects bankable China's declining role in African infrastructure and what's replacing it The O&M challenge: building operational capability from scratch in frontier markets Why winning the argument for renewables means making the commercial case - not just the climate one Want to track battery storage capacity and market trends across Africa and beyond? Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, is built for exactly these questions. Free sign up: https://modoenergy.com/sign-up?utm_source=podcast_apps&utm_medium=podcast&utm_id=michael_cupit Transcript available here: ────────────────────────────⏱ CHAPTERS0:00 Introduction1:08 The two biggest misconceptions about Afric…

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## Transcript

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