Economical and financial study of photovoltaic energy production in Africa: Case of Morocco, Côte d´Ivoire and South Africa

Solar Energy is highly competitive, not only between Renewable Energy but also compared with traditional fossil fuels. This fact is supported by studies in developed countries in Europe. This experience should take advantage of the developing countries, which may also have additional comparative advantages by supporting solar radiation throughout the year. This is the case of Africa. Besides, other key factor for boosting economic growth in developing countries is the energetic independence of the countries. Renewable energies are well suited for such purpose even if effective dissemination of renewable energies is their production price. Energy production price depends on the maturity of related technology and also on economic factors, which are mainly related to incentive policies. This paper reports on the economic and financial calculations related to the energy production of a standard 10 kW photovoltaic plant connected to an electric grid and its economic profitability in terms of economic returns of the electricity production in three Africans countries located in the North, Centre of South and Africa. Countries studied are Morocco, Ivory Coast and South Africa with different solar radiation conditions and different energy policies. We show that when photovoltaic plants are considered as economic assets, the knowledge of financial and economic characteristics of the country as well as the geographical localization of photovoltaic plants, have to be have to be taken into account in order to assess the profitability of the investment.