"The solar surge does little to address the most pressing social and economic problems of developing countries like South Africa, the need to generate new jobs for millions of young citizens" is just out and out bullshit. That's only looking at first-order effects, yet cheap energy is famously most important for its second-order economic benefits. If energy is cheap, everything else gets cheaper; if its price rises, so does the price of everything else. When prices get more affordable over time, productivity can improve.
As I've mentioend a couple of times in recent posts, there are massive and profound benefits for people in sub-Saharan Africa from the current rapid and remarkable deployment of cheap solar and battery installations. These include: explosive growth in two and three wheel transport, leading to oil demand destruction (fuel for two and three wheelers is a dominant fraction of current consumption in many African cities), rapid improvements in air quality and thus respiratory health, big cuts in balance-of-payments drains for national economies, stabilised household finances as daily unpredictable cash drains for fuel become stabilised amortised capex, massive cuts to risks and time spent by women and girls in particular eg for water collection, etc. No more kerosene heating at home means a rapid drop in respiratory conditions from indoor air pollution. Kids can study after dark, meaning better educational outcomes. Vaccine storage becomes much lower risk because small clinics have reliable power. Rural African communities can narrow the gap with urban. These all lead to substantial economic improvements for everyone.