On 4 September 2026 the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy published the evaluation results for the sixth round of Tunisia’s solar PV authorisation regime, covering applications received up to 30 June 2026. 309 projects were retained, for a combined capacity of 455 MWc. Project holders have been asked to confirm their details with the Ministry, and the decisions themselves — the accords de principe — will follow in a later announcement.
That last point matters and is easily missed: this is a shortlist, not an award. Nothing has yet been authorised, financed or built.
The interesting part is not the headline number. It is the shape of the portfolio, which tells you a great deal about what will happen next.
What was retained
The round is made up almost entirely of very small projects.
| Unit capacity | Projects | Cumulative capacity | Share of capacity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 MWc | 187 | 187 MWc | 41.1% |
| 2 MWc | 119 | 238 MWc | 52.3% |
| 10 MWc | 3 | 30 MWc | 6.6% |
| Total | 309 | 455 MWc | 100% |
The average project is 1.47 MWc. Three projects at 10 MWc account for the entire upper end of the round. In other words, Tunisia has just shortlisted a portfolio equivalent to roughly one utility-scale plant, divided into 309 separate transactions, each requiring its own land, its own grid connection, its own financing and its own construction contract.
Where the capacity sits
Concentration is pronounced. Four governorates carry more than half the capacity.
| Governorate | Projects | Capacity (MWc) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sidi Bouzid | 56 | 75 | 16.5% |
| Gafsa | 51 | 71 | 15.6% |
| Kébili | 37 | 62 | 13.6% |
| Médenine | 39 | 47 | 10.3% |
| Gabès | 11 | 42 | 9.2% |
| Sfax | 23 | 32 | 7.0% |
| Sousse | 19 | 25 | 5.5% |
| Le Kef | 18 | 23 | 5.1% |
| Kairouan | 12 | 18 | 4.0% |
| Kasserine | 10 | 16 | 3.5% |
| Tataouine | 10 | 14 | 3.1% |
| Tozeur | 10 | 12 | 2.6% |
| Other governorates | 13 | 18 | 4.0% |
The concentration follows irradiation, land availability and land cost, which is rational. It also means a large number of separate projects are competing for connection capacity in the same delegations. Repeat locations appear throughout the list — Lassouda and Bir El Hafey in Sidi Bouzid, Douz in Kébili, Oued Rmal in Le Kef, Enfidha in Sousse, Zarzis in Médenine. Nineteen projects sit in Sousse alone, most of them around Enfidha.
Why financing is the binding constraint
The authorisation regime was designed to open generation to Tunisian private investors, and on that measure it has worked. The consequence is a portfolio held largely by individuals and by groupements of individuals rather than by energy companies with balance sheets and project finance experience.
A 1 or 2 MWc plant selling to STEG is a bankable proposition in principle. The tariff is set, the offtaker is the national utility, and the technology is mature. The difficulty is not the economics. It is the documentation chain a lender needs before it will lend, and the fact that Tunisian banks lend against collateral and sponsor covenants rather than against project cash flows.
In practice a holder needs, before financial close: secured land with clean title or a registered lease, a STEG preliminary connection agreement, environmental clearance, a bankable EPC contract with performance and availability guarantees, an independently verified yield assessment, an operating cost model that survives scrutiny, and equity that is genuinely available rather than notionally committed. Each item is straightforward on its own. Assembled by someone doing it for the first time, on a project too small to carry professional advisory fees comfortably, the chain is where projects stall.
Scale compounds the problem. At 1 MWc, the fixed costs of development — studies, legal work, bank arrangement, technical verification — are spread across a very small asset. This is precisely why aggregation matters: a lender or fund assessing thirty similar projects against a common technical standard faces a fraction of the per-project cost of assessing them one at a time.
Why execution is the second constraint
Assume financing resolves. Three hundred and nine plants then need to be built, largely in the same regions, drawing on the same pool of local EPC contractors, the same imported equipment supply chain, and the same STEG regional teams for connection and commissioning.
Several pressures arrive together. Authorisations carry validity periods, so holders build against a deadline rather than against readiness. Local grid capacity in the concentrated delegations is finite, and connection studies are sequential, so the order in which projects apply matters more than their individual merit. Small EPC contracts rarely carry the performance security that would protect a first-time owner against underperformance or delay. And quality varies widely when many small contracts are awarded quickly on price alone.
The predictable outcome is that a meaningful share of these 455 MWc will not be commissioned within the expected window, and that a further share will be commissioned but underperform against the yield assumed in the financing. Neither failure is a technology problem. Both are owner capability problems.
What to watch next
The accords de principe have not been issued. Until they are, no project has a firm regulatory basis. Beyond that, the sequence of STEG connection agreements in the concentrated delegations will determine which projects actually proceed, and the terms on which Tunisian banks lend to first-time single-asset sponsors will determine how many reach financial close at all.
It is also worth noting that the published list numbers projects from 1 to 344 while containing 309 entries. Thirty-five numbers do not appear. The Ministry has not stated why, and no conclusion should be drawn from it.
Sources
Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, Résultat de l’évaluation des demandes relatives aux projets de production d’énergie solaire photovoltaïque dans le cadre du sixième round du régime des autorisations, announcement of 4 September 2026, and the annexed list of retained projects (PDF, 17 pages). Capacity and distribution figures in this article are aggregated by AIUS from that list. Regime framework: Loi n° 2015-12 of 11 May 2015 and Décret n° 1123 of 24 August 2016.
AIUS provides project management and construction supervision for solar plants under the Tunisian authorisation regime, assists project holders in assembling the technical and financial documentation lenders require, and acts as independent technical adviser to lenders and funds assessing portfolios of these projects. If you hold a project retained in this round, or are assessing several, we are available to discuss the technical and financing path.
