How Africa Is Exporting Billions Worth of Electricity to Europe – And Why It’s Changing the World
For decades, energy has flowed one way — from fossil-fuel-rich nations into the furnaces and power plants of industrialised Europe. But something remarkable is quietly happening in 2026. A growing number of countries across Africa and the developing world are now exporting electricity worth billions of rupees, dollars, and euros directly to European markets. This isn’t a future vision. It’s happening right now, through undersea cables, regional power grids, and bold national energy strategies — and it is reshaping the global economy in ways most people haven’t noticed yet.
Morocco: Africa’s First Major Clean Energy Exporter to Europe
Morocco has become the continent’s most advanced electricity exporter to Europe, and its story is one of the most extraordinary economic transformations of the 21st century.
Two high-voltage cables — each rated at 700 MW — already physically connect Morocco’s power grid to Spain, making Morocco the only African country with a live, operational electricity trading relationship with continental Europe. Through these cables, Morocco exports solar and wind-generated electricity to Spanish households and businesses on a daily basis. A third 700 MW cable linking the two countries is currently under development and is expected to be operational by 2026, along with a separate 1 GW cable connecting Morocco directly to Portugal. You can read more about Morocco’s energy infrastructure at Global Energy Monitor’s Morocco Power Sector overview.
But Morocco’s ambitions extend far beyond Spain. The most staggering project in the pipeline is Xlinks — a privately financed scheme to lay four undersea high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cables stretching 3,800 kilometres from giant solar and wind farms in the Moroccan desert all the way to the coast of Devon in southwest England. The project would deliver 3.6 GW of clean electricity — enough to power around 7 million UK homes — entirely from Moroccan renewables. With an estimated cost of $27–$30 billion, Xlinks would become the longest submarine power interconnection in the world. The UK government designated it a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project, and initial survey investment has already begun.
The scale of Morocco’s renewable ambitions is equally striking. The country has committed to sourcing 64% of its electricity from renewables by 2030 — up from 37% in 2021 — and the European Union committed $688.6 million to Morocco’s energy transition in 2023 alone, recognising the strategic importance of North African clean energy to European decarbonisation goals.
Tunisia–Italy: The ELMED Cable That Will Cross the Mediterranean
The ELMED project is one of the most technically ambitious infrastructure undertakings in the Mediterranean — and one of the clearest examples of how electricity export relationships are being built between Africa and Europe right now.
ELMED is a 220-kilometre undersea power cable that will connect the electricity grids of Tunisia and Italy across the Strait of Sicily, running at a maximum depth of 800 metres below the sea surface. It will carry 600 MW of power in both directions — allowing Italy to import Tunisian solar and wind electricity when North Africa generates surplus renewable power, and allowing Tunisia to import Italian electricity during periods of high domestic demand. The cable runs from a converter station near Partanna in Sicily to a new substation at Mlaabi on Tunisia’s Cap Bon peninsula.
The project has secured significant backing from the highest levels of European governance. The European Commission awarded $337 million in funding through its Connecting Europe Facility — the first time the CEF has ever financed an infrastructure project linking an EU member state with a non-EU partner country. Italy, France, Malta, Germany, Algeria, and Tunisia have all provided governmental approval. The target completion date is 2028. Full details are available at elmedproject.com.
Tunisia’s longer-term energy ambitions are equally significant. The government is targeting 3.5 GW of installed renewable capacity by 2030 and is actively developing a legal framework to produce and export green hydrogen to Europe through the existing Transmed gas pipeline — a project that could generate enormous export revenues if realised.
Egypt–Greece: The GREGY Cable
Egypt is developing its own major electricity export route to Europe through the GREGY interconnector — a planned 2 GW undersea cable running 1,400 kilometres from Egypt to Cyprus, and then from Cyprus to the Greek island of Crete. A cable connecting Crete to the Greek mainland was already completed in 2021, meaning that once GREGY is operational, Egyptian solar electricity could flow all the way to mainland European consumers.
Egypt’s Benban Solar Park — one of the largest in the world at 1.65 GW — is already operational, and the country has enormous additional renewable capacity under development. The GREGY project was first announced in 2017 but has faced timeline delays; the latest projections suggest first power delivery by 2029. Separately, the EuroAfrica Interconnector — another Egypt-Cyprus-Greece cable — is also in development with a 2 GW target capacity.
Egypt’s solar resources are extraordinary. With over 3,000 hours of sunshine annually and vast desert land available for solar farms, the country has the natural endowment to become one of the world’s largest clean electricity exporters — if the transmission infrastructure can be built.
Nepal: Exporting Hydropower Worth Billions
While the Africa-Europe story is the most dramatic, it’s not the only electricity export story worth following. Nepal offers a parallel and equally fascinating example of a developing country turning its natural resources into export income.
Nepal sits on one of the world’s greatest untapped hydropower resources — an estimated 83 GW of total potential from the rivers flowing down from the Himalayas. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has been monetising that potential aggressively, exporting surplus hydropower to India during the monsoon season when river levels are high and electricity generation peaks.
In the fiscal year 2024/25, Nepal exported 2.35 billion units of electricity worth Rs 17.46 billion to India, according to the Rising Nepal Daily. In the first five months of FY 2025/26 alone, Nepal earned over Rs 18.2 billion from electricity exports — already surpassing the full previous year. India has committed to purchasing 10,000 MW of Nepali power over the next decade, and Nepal has now also begun exporting 40 MW of electricity to Bangladesh through a tripartite corridor that crosses Indian territory.
The country’s installed hydropower capacity now stands at 3,255 MW, with an additional 700 MW being connected to the national grid annually. The long-term ambition — exporting 15,000 MW by 2035 — would make Nepal one of the most significant clean energy exporters in Asia.
The Bigger Picture: Who Dominates Global Electricity Exports?
To understand why these emerging exporters matter, it helps to see the landscape they’re entering. According to World’s Top Exports, global electricity exports totalled $59.8 billion in 2024 — a 105% increase compared to just $29.2 billion in 2020. Europe currently dominates, with the continent accounting for 76.5% of all electricity exported worldwide. France leads all nations with net exports of nearly 90 TWh — equivalent to Belgium’s entire annual consumption. France became the world’s largest electricity exporter in 2024, driven by a rebound in nuclear output and a 10% increase in renewables.
According to Euronews, among 35 European countries tracked in 2024, 13 were net electricity exporters while 21 were net importers. Italy is Europe’s largest net importer at 51,000 GWh — making it the most lucrative destination for North African electricity exports. Germany, once a major exporter, became a net importer in 2023 following the closure of its last nuclear reactors and rising carbon prices that made German coal uncompetitive.
Why This Matters for the Energy Transition
The electricity export story is about more than economics — it’s central to the global effort to decarbonise energy systems. Solar panels in sun-rich North Africa generate up to three times more energy than equivalent panels in cloudy northern Europe. Wind resources across Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia are among the strongest and most consistent in the world. Exporting clean electricity from where it can be most cheaply generated to where it is most urgently needed is one of the most efficient pathways to cutting global carbon emissions.
The World Economic Forum has identified cross-border clean energy trade as a critical pillar of climate adaptation. The International Energy Agency notes that electricity imports and exports among European OECD countries have increased significantly over the past two decades — a trend that will only accelerate as renewables replace fossil fuel plants that can no longer guarantee 24/7 power supply on their own.
The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — which charges importers for the carbon content of goods entering the EU — creates a major financial incentive for African exporters to ensure their electricity is genuinely clean. Countries that build large renewable capacity and export the surplus to Europe will benefit handsomely. Those that try to export fossil-fuel-generated power will face a price penalty that makes the economics unworkable.
What Stands in the Way?
The potential is enormous, but the obstacles are real. Subsea cable manufacturing capacity is a genuine bottleneck — global supply for high-voltage undersea cable currently sits at around 9,000 km per year, and the pipeline of planned projects worldwide significantly exceeds that. The Xlinks Morocco-UK cable alone would consume a significant fraction of annual global production.
Geopolitical complexity also looms large. Morocco’s electricity generation includes projects in Western Sahara, a disputed territory where a low-level independence conflict continues. Egypt’s interconnection projects face sovereignty complications involving Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey in contested Mediterranean waters. And in North Africa, electricity markets are generally not liberalised — pricing and trading happen through bilateral government agreements rather than competitive markets, which adds layers of political risk for investors.
Financing at the scale required is another challenge. The Xlinks project alone requires $27–$30 billion. The full buildout of the Africa-Europe electricity corridor envisaged by analysts at Rystad Energy would require over $27.5 billion in investment just for the interconnectors and the 23 GW of associated renewable generation in North Africa.
The electricity export revolution is underway. Morocco is already selling solar power to Spain through cables that carry current every single day. Tunisia and Italy are building the first direct current connection between Africa and Europe. Nepal has become a net electricity exporter for the first time in its history. And behind all of it, a financial reality is taking shape: countries blessed with sun, wind, and water are sitting on energy resources that the rest of the world urgently needs — and is now willing to pay billions for.
The old energy order — where poor countries exported raw materials and rich countries exported finished products — is beginning to reverse. And electricity, invisible and weightless, flowing silently through cables beneath the ocean floor, may be the commodity that drives the most significant economic realignment of the coming decade.
For further reading, explore Euronews’ electricity trade analysis, Yale E360’s deep dive on North Africa’s solar boom, and PV Magazine’s overview of planned undersea cables.
