Zambia’s Power Sector Is Recovering, But Who Is Getting the Electricity? Part One: The 102 Percent Recovery Behind the Headline Numbers

This week’s Monday Opinion looks beyond the improving headline numbers in Zambia’s electricity sector and asks a harder question: as generation recovers and reforms accelerate, is reliable power returning evenly across the economy, or are different users experiencing different levels of electricity security? The power sector is changing Zambia’s electricity sector is no longer where […]

This week’s Monday Opinion looks beyond the improving headline numbers in Zambia’s electricity sector and asks a harder question: as generation recovers and reforms accelerate, is reliable power returning evenly across the economy, or are different users experiencing different levels of electricity security?

The power sector is changing

Zambia’s electricity sector is no longer where it was at the height of the 2024 drought-induced power crisis. Government reports installed generation capacity of 4,576 MW in 2026, including 841 MW of solar, while Open Access, net metering, private generation and regional power trading are changing how electricity is produced and purchased.

These are important gains. But the policy debate must move beyond asking how many megawatts Zambia has installed. The harder question is: who can obtain dependable electricity, through what arrangements and at what cost?

The 102 percent recovery

The Energy Regulation Board reports that national electricity consumption increased from about 10,436.3 GWh in 2024 to 15,470.6 GWh in 2025, a rise of 48.2 percent. At first glance, this looks like a broad electricity-sector recovery.

The composition tells a different story. Mining electricity consumption rose from about 4,650.1 GWh to 9,785.4 GWh, an increase of roughly 5,135 GWh. Yet total national consumption increased by only about 5,034 GWh.

In other words, the increase in mining consumption alone was equivalent to about 102 percent of the entire net increase in national electricity consumption. This is possible because electricity consumption across the rest of the economy, taken together, slightly declined.

Domestic consumption fell by 8.1 percent, manufacturing by 12.7 percent and agriculture by 13.8 percent. The headline says electricity demand rebounded strongly. The underlying numbers say something more specific: Zambia experienced a large mining electricity recovery while several other parts of the economy remained subdued.

Not simply a drought rebound

The obvious explanation is that 2024 was exceptional. Hydropower generation collapsed, load shedding intensified and consumers adjusted sharply. A rebound in 2025 should therefore be expected.

But comparing 2025 only with the crisis year risks overstating the recovery. Using 2023, before the full drought shock, as a benchmark of 100 produces a more revealing picture. By 2025, national electricity consumption had recovered to roughly 106. Mining had risen to about 128. Domestic consumption remained around 72, manufacturing around 64 and agriculture around 69.

This suggests that Zambia has not simply returned to its pre-drought electricity-consumption pattern. The structure of the recovery has changed.

 

Figure 1. Mining accounted for about 102% of the net increase in recorded electricity consumption, 2024–2025.

 

Figure 2. The 2025 recovery remained highly uneven relative to the pre-drought 2023 benchmark.

Reliability is becoming a market

Part of the explanation may lie in how the electricity market itself is changing. ERB approved 135 Power Purchase Agreements, Power Supply Agreements, wheeling agreements and System Operations Agreements in 2025. Open Access also allows eligible generators, traders and customers to arrange bilateral transactions while using common transmission and distribution infrastructure.

This is economically important. A mine or large industrial consumer can increasingly combine bilateral contracts, electricity traders, imports, embedded generation and wheeling arrangements to secure supply. The average household or small enterprise cannot construct the same portfolio; its reliability remains much more closely tied to the performance of the public electricity system.

Zambia may therefore be moving from a system where electricity reliability was largely allocated administratively toward one where some users can increasingly purchase additional reliability through contracts.

That is not inherently a bad development. Large consumers can make new generation bankable, bring imported electricity into the system and reduce pressure on ZESCO. The question is whether these transactions expand the electricity available to the country or mainly change who receives scarce power first.

The real test is additionality

This distinction should become central to evaluating Open Access. If a mining company signs a contract that finances a new power plant, the transaction creates additional capacity and can leave the wider system better off. But if a financially strong consumer mainly secures contractual priority over electricity already available in a constrained system, reliability improves for that customer without necessarily solving the national shortage. Open Access should therefore also be judged by how much genuinely additional and dependable electricity it creates.

Recovery to electricity security

Zambia now needs a more sophisticated way of measuring energy-sector progress. Installed capacity matters. Connections matter. Investment matters. But a grid connection is not the same as reliable access and rising national consumption does not mean every part of the economy is recovering equally.

The emerging energy market can strengthen Zambia’s economy if private reliability also expands public electricity security.

The power crisis forced Zambia to ask where new electricity would come from. The recovery requires a new question: what kind of electricity market are we building and who will reliably benefit from it?

Look out for Part Two next week, where we examine the deeper economics of Open Access, ZESCO’s changing role, system-operator neutrality, legacy costs and why Zambia needs a Reliability Distribution Test for electricity-sector reform.

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.