Between 2023 and 2024, investment into the off-grid solar sector reached $1.2 billion. By 2023, 2022–23, that figure had fallen to $425 million, a 43% drop. By 2024, it fell again roughly to $300 million. At the early-stage level, grant funding for start-ups more than halved between 2023 and 2024, dropping to just over $1 million. Private investors, equity funds, and early-stage backers pulled back sharply across the board.
On paper, that looks like a sector in retreat. But the picture is more nuanced, and for PAYGO solar operators who understand what’s actually happening, it points to a significant opportunity.
While private investment contracted, multilateral and institutional capital has been moving in the opposite direction. According to GOGLA, $900 million in Results-Based Financing has been committed to the off-grid solar sector historically, with more than half pledged in just the past two years. The funding hasn’t disappeared. It has shifted: away from equity and early-stage grants, toward structured, performance-linked programs run by development banks and regional funding mechanisms.
The announcements arriving in early 2026 reflect exactly this shift. Rwanda unlocked $300 million in clean energy financing, including 50,000 new solar home systems through a joint African Development Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank programme. Days later, Tanzania’s government launched a project to install 20,000 solar home systems across 120 islands. These are not one-off events. They are the visible output of a funding structure that has been quietly building for two years.
For PAYGO solar operators, this context matters. The capital available in 2026 is not the same as the capital available in 2022. It comes from different sources, through different mechanisms, with different requirements. And the operators who will benefit most are those who have already built the operational infrastructure to meet them.
Private investment fell. Multilateral capital rose. The funding didn’t disappear, it grew more demanding. And that changes everything about how PAYGO operators need to prepare
Where the money is coming from
The programs now gaining momentum in 2026 are not new creations, they were designed and approved over the past two to three years and are now moving from planning into active implementation. Calls for proposals are opening. First disbursements are being made. For operators paying attention, the pipeline is becoming a reality.
The Mwinda Fund—DRC
One of the most significant recent developments is the transition of the Mwinda Fund from program design into early implementation. The fund is targeting the Democratic Republic of Congo, where national electrification rates sit at roughly 20–25% of the population, well below the Sub-Saharan average of around 50%. For a market of this size with this level of energy poverty, decentralized off-grid solutions including solar home systems are not a supplement to grid expansion. They are the primary electrification strategy for the foreseeable future.
Late 2025 and early 2026 mark the fund’s transition to early implementation, with initial calls for proposals now targeting private operators with the capacity to deploy at scale.
ROGEAP—West Africa and the Sahel
At a regional level, the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP) continues to operate across ECOWAS and Sahel countries. Early disbursements under the current programme structure have already reached an estimated $3.7 million to participating solar SMEs. Individual grant windows range from approximately $15,000 to $250,000 per allocation depending on the funding track and project type, reflecting a phased, performance-linked model rather than a single large capital event.
This is the design logic of results-based financing: operators receive funding against verified outputs, not project plans.
The broader context
Rwanda’s $300M AfDB/AIIB programs and Tanzania’s island SHS initiative sit within this same structural trend. Multilateral capital is being deployed through established mechanisms, at increasing scale, into markets where off-grid solutions remain the only viable path to universal electrification. The money is real. The programmes are live.
What the funders are actually looking for
Understanding where the funding is going is only half the picture. The more important question for PAYGO operators is: what does it take to access it?
Across the grant programs visible in late 2025 and early 2026, a consistent set of criteria shapes who receives funding and how much. These priorities have guided SHS grant-making for several years and are not changing, but operators who don’t build against them will find themselves consistently on the outside of these opportunities.
• Markets with persistent electrification gaps, where off-grid solutions will remain the primary mode of access for an extended period
• Private-sector-led deployment models, where operators—not public bodies, are responsible for distribution, installation, customer management, and long-term service
• Scale readiness: the ability to manage large contract portfolios across multiple geographies, often simultaneously
• Results-based financing (RBF) compliance: verified, comparable performance data reported against standardised indicators
• Customer-level tracking: granular visibility into repayment behaviour, portfolio health, and customer outcomes, not aggregate estimates
Results-based financing doesn’t reward operators for deploying systems. It rewards operators for proving those systems are working, and having the data to show it.
That last point is worth dwelling on. RBF mechanisms don’t reward operators for deploying systems. They reward operators for proving those systems are working, and having the data infrastructure to demonstrate it clearly, consistently, and at scale. Programs like ROGEAP are not writing cheques against project plans. They are disbursing against verified results.
This means the operational question and the funding question are the same question. If your field operations aren’t generating clean, trackable data on customer payments, agent activity and portfolio performance, you are not just running inefficiently. You are effectively ineligible for the next wave of grant capital.
The operational readiness gap
The Tanzania island project is a useful illustration of why this matters at the field level. Deploying 20,000 SHS systems across 120 islands is not a financing problem, it is an operations problem. How do you dispatch and manage field agents across fragmented, hard-to-reach geographies? How do you collect payments in areas without reliable connectivity? How do you maintain real-time visibility over a portfolio distributed across dozens of island communities?
These are not edge cases. They are the defining operational realities of last-mile SHS distribution. And for operators working in these environments, the ability to manage at this level of complexity is exactly what grant funders are evaluating when they assess eligibility.
The operators who will access grant capital most effectively in 2026 are those who have already resolved the operational layer:
• Digitized field workflows that work offline and sync when connectivity is restored
• Payment reconciliation systems that handle both cash and mobile money without revenue leakage
• Portfolio dashboards that give management real-time visibility across geographies and agent networks
• Automated workflows that reduce the manual burden of compliance reporting and results verification
Without these foundations, scaling up to capture grant-funded growth creates more problems than it solves. With them, operators are not just eligible, they are positioned to deploy faster, report more credibly, and build the track record that attracts the next tranche of funding.
What this means for PAYGO operators in 2026
The grant landscape in 2026 signals continuity, not disruption. Capital is available through structured programmes with clear criteria, established frameworks, and phased disbursement. For operators who meet the requirements, these are real opportunities at a meaningful scale.
But the requirements are genuine. Funders are not looking for operators with good intentions and a solid pitch deck. They are looking for operators who can demonstrate through actual operational data that they have the systems to deploy responsibly, track performance rigorously, and report results verifiably.
The operators building that operational foundation now are the ones who will be best placed to capture the next wave of SHS grants, and the wave after that.
The capital is moving. The question is whether the operations are ready to move with it.
The operators building their operational foundation now are the ones best placed to capture the next wave of SHS grants, and the wave after that.
How Upya helps PAYGO solar operators access grant capital
Upya gives last-mile SHS distributors the operational backbone that grant programmes require, from offline-ready field data collection and payment reconciliation to real-time portfolio visibility and automated workflow management.
See how Lumos built this foundation across Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire → here