POWER ON PAPER IS NOT POWER AT THE MINE: ZAMBIA’S NEXT ENERGY TEST IS DELIVERABILITY— Part One

This week’s Monday Opinion examines a distinction that is becoming central to Zambia’s energy and industrialization debate: installed electricity capacity is not the same thing as dependable power and dependable power is not the same thing as electricity that can actually reach a mine, smelter, factory or household when it is needed. Zambia has made […]

This week’s Monday Opinion examines a distinction that is becoming central to Zambia’s energy and industrialization debate: installed electricity capacity is not the same thing as dependable power and dependable power is not the same thing as electricity that can actually reach a mine, smelter, factory or household when it is needed.

Zambia has made visible progress in adding generation. The Ministry of Energy reports that installed capacity increased from about 3,100 MW in 2021 to 4,576 MW in 2026, with solar rising to 841 MW. That expansion matters. It diversifies a system that was severely exposed during the 2023/2024 drought and creates a larger platform for future growth.

But capacity headlines can hide a harder operational reality. ERB’s 2025 Energy Sector Report recorded 4,107.86 MW of installed capacity at end-2025, while average generation on the interconnected system was only about 1,489 MW against average demand of roughly 2,218 MW. The result was an average deficit of about 729 MW during the year. The lesson is simple: nameplate megawatts describe what assets can theoretically produce; they do not tell us what the system can reliably generate and deliver under hydrological, network and operating constraints.

The grid is becoming part of the growth equation
This distinction becomes more important as Zambia pursues three million tonnes of annual copper production by 2031. Mining expansion and value addition require more than electricity somewhere on the national system. They require power at specific locations, in sufficient quantity, with the voltage quality and reliability needed for continuous industrial processes.

Evidence from regional electricity trading illustrates the problem. In June 2026, the Southern African Power Pool reported 137.4 GWh matched in the day-ahead market, but only 97.4 GWh was actually traded. About 29 percent of matched volume could not be delivered because of transmission constraints, with the Zimbabwe–Zambia interconnector identified as a major bottleneck. In other words, electricity can exist commercially and still fail to arrive physically.

Figure: Matched versus physically traded day-ahead power, June 2026. Source: Southern African Power Pool, Market Performance Report – June 2026.

This does not mean generation has stopped being a constraint. Zambia’s 2025 deficit makes that conclusion impossible to defend. The more accurate reading is that transmission is becoming an increasingly important co-binding constraint as generation, imports and private transactions expand. Adding generation without sufficient evacuation capacity can create stranded or underutilised supply. Expanding the grid without enough dependable generation produces the opposite problem. Industrial power planning therefore has to solve both sides together.

The Next Test Is Delivery
The electricity market is also changing quickly. ERB approved 135 electricity agreements in 2025: 101 PPAs, 22 PSAs, seven wheeling agreements and five system-operation agreements. Zambia is moving beyond the traditional single-buyer model toward a more complex system involving generators, traders, network operators and large customers.

That is important progress, but the meaningful performance test for Open Access is not simply how many agreements are signed. The stronger test is whether the new market delivers additional dependable MWh to productive users, how long connections take, whether transmission headroom exists, how balancing and settlement work, and whether costs are allocated transparently.

The same discipline is needed when discussing industrial electricity prices. A regional pool price is not automatically the price a mine or processor pays. Between the generator and the industrial load sit network charges, losses, wheeling, trading and credit costs, taxes, foreign-exchange exposure and the cost of backup or reliability arrangements. For mineral processing and other electricity-intensive value addition, the relevant competitiveness measure is therefore the delivered cost of dependable power, not the headline energy price alone.

From megawatt targets to deliverability
A useful planning framework is therefore to distinguish four layers: installed MW, dependable MW, deliverable MW and economically usable MW. Each answers a different question. The first is an asset count; the second reflects actual availability; the third reflects network capability; and the fourth adds the commercial cost and reliability required for productive investment.

The next phase of Zambia’s energy debate should therefore become more spatial and more operational. Where will credible new mining and processing loads arise? When will those projects reach investment and production stages? Which substations, transmission corridors and interconnectors will serve them? Which generation projects are financed and likely to reach commercial operation, rather than merely announced? And where large customers secure alternative supply, how are network and legacy costs treated for the rest of the system?
These questions matter beyond mining.

ERB’s 2025 data show that electricity consumption rebounded very strongly in mining while recorded consumption in manufacturing, agriculture and households remained below 2024 levels. That does not prove that mining crowded out other users, but it does make the distribution of reliability a legitimate policy question. New private arrangements should be assessed partly on whether they expand total dependable supply or mainly redistribute access to scarcity.

Zambia’s energy challenge is therefore changing. The country still needs more generation, but success cannot be measured by installed megawatts alone. The stronger measure is how much dependable electricity the system can generate, move through the network and deliver at a commercially viable cost to productive users without weakening reliability or financial sustainability elsewhere.
For the three-million-tonne copper ambition, that distinction is decisive. Power on paper cannot run a mine. What matters is power that arrives.

Look out for Part Two next week, where we examine what stands between available electricity and reliable delivery.
About the Author. Ibrahim Kamara is Head of Research at the Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD). He holds degrees in Economics and Finance and a Master’s in Public Finance and Taxation from the University of Lusaka. He is currently pursuing a second master’s degree in Economics at the Copperbelt University. His work focuses on applied economic research for policy reform, supported by experience in financial journalism and public policy analysis.