Board 2025 official report Zambia’s National installed […]

Board 2025 official report Zambia’s National installed electricity capacity by technology currently stands at 4.1 thousand megawatt MW with Hydro power dominating the league by 77.1% with an installed capacity of 3.2 thousand Megawatts.

The report further indicates that Coal is the country’s second with a total of 330 Megawatts (330 MW) accounting for 8% of the total capacity, diesel holds an installed capacity of 194.8 Megawatts accounting for 4.7% out of the total capacity. Additionally, Solar currently has an nstalled total capacity of 307.7 MW represting 7.5% out of the total. And Heavy Fuel oil holds about 110 MW accounting for 2.7% of the country’s total capacity of over 4 thousand MW.

With statistics clearly showing that Hydro power is the country’s major source of electricity, why is government not putting up deliberate measures around attracting investments in hydro power construction?

Earlier Zambia’s Business Times ZBT- reported on possibilities of the constructing an Hydro power station in the Northern and Luapula Province considering that the provinces has historically enjoyed above normal rainfall and far more sustainable hydrological conditions, as compared to other hydro power stations and dams located in the southern parts of the country – prone to draught.

 Considering that the northern parts of Zambia also boast of under-utilised lakes and stores of massive water such as Tanganyika, Lake Bangweulu, Lake Mweru, Mweru Wantinpa and many others which could be utilised to store and be channeled to generate hydropower that can help address the country’s power issues, experts suggest that Northern and Luapula province could just be the solution to enhanced hydropower generation in the Zambia.

 However, in the past months Zambia’s electricity supply been stable but some experts question whether the supply will remain stable after elections. According to a source whose name remains withheld noted that the availablity of power seen in the last 4 to 5 months is temporary due to the election period the country has entered in.

Speaking in an interview with Zambian Business times the unnamed source mentioned that governments has been importing power to sustain operations and the big question is on whether that will continue even after elections.

“ Government has been importing power to sustain operations not because they want to see the country have sufficient power but because it is a survival issue to cross the election period.” He added that the issue of loadshading is not due to the country lacking capacity to produce sufficient energy but rather an issue of exporting electricity.

“ The country’s has good infrastructure for energy, capable of producing sufficient energy across the country without experiencing any load shedding, but the problem is that government signed contract’s and started export power instead of focusing on sustainability of the country to have sufficient energy the decision fail on the side of making money,”.

Article by Justine Phiri