Cape Verde is a small country consisting of 10 small islands and 13 islets, located in the Atlantic Ocean, 400 kilometers from the westernmost point of Africa. It has a total area of 4,033 km2 and a total population of 559,646. Almost half of the population lives on the main island of Santiago and the capital city, located on Santiago Island, is Praia. Portuguese is the official language.

The economy of Cape Verde is service-oriented, with commerce, transport, and public services accounting for more than 70% of GDP. Although nearly 70% of the population lives in rural areas, agriculture and fishing contribute only about 9% of GDP. Light manufacturing accounts for most of the remainder. An amount estimated at about 20% of GDP is contributed to the domestic economy through remittances from expatriate Cape Verdeans.

The country has poor natural resources including poor quality soil for agriculture. The share of food production is low and nearly 82% of food in imported. The country is high on water scarcity, with less than 500m³/year of freshwater per capita to meet the country's needs in terms of human consumption, agriculture, industry, energy and environment.

Cape Verde’s energy sector is strongly characterized by the consumption of fossil fuels, biomass (wood) and use of renewable energy, particularly wind and solar power. Imported petroleum products contributed to about 80% of total primary energy supply in 2017. Cape Verde registered a total demand of 491 GWh out of which 83 GWh came from renewable energy sources in 2017. In 2017, 93% of the population had access to electricity.

Cape Verde has great wind potential, with average wind speeds of 7.5 m/s and installed wind energy capacity amounting to 24 MW by the end of 2013. Solar energy potential is also very high, estimated at 6 kWh/m²/day.  Solar PV is mostly used for lighting, water pumping and telecommunication systems.

The 2018-2040 Master Plan for the Electricity Sector presents a strategy with the objective of reaching 54% of total energy requirements supplied by renewable sources by 2030, with a phased implementation schedule for achieving a total capacity of 251 MW, plus more than 620 MW of storage capacity. This strategy foresees the installation of more than 150 MW of new solar PV projects and more than 60 MW of new Wind Farms across the country.