Zambia turns to solar to solve energy crisis

DW (English)

Zambia gets 90% of its electricity from rewewables - mostly hydropower from the mighty Kariba Dam. But droughts have sent the country spiraling into an energy crisis. Now it's betting big on solar, but is that a risky gamble?

Transcript

00:00Load shedding in Zambia's capital, Lusaka. Nothing unusual these days.

00:06Sometimes the power can be out for up to 20 hours. Many shops are forced to close in that time.

00:13Baba Andrew Simezie doesn't have much to do either.

00:17His appliances need power. Without electricity, his takings plummet.

00:23When you don't have power, it becomes a very big challenge.

00:27It's everything that goes down. There's no business.

00:31There are a lot of budgets that we do make.

00:34You need to eat, you need to do those needful things, you know.

00:39There's no fuel, there's no food.

00:42Over 80% of Zambia's electricity comes from hydropower.

00:46The Kariba Dam supplies around a quarter of it.

00:50But a drought lasting more than a year led to historically low water levels and massive blackouts.

00:56These pictures are from October 2024.

00:59The drought is largely over for now.

01:02But Zambia's dependence on hydropower remains.

01:05Economic losses in 2024 alone were estimated at around 1.3 billion United States dollars.

01:12Business for Lusaka's charcoal traders, by contrast, is flourishing.

01:16Prices have doubled within a year.

01:18Some of our businesses come from the power outages.

01:22A lot of people are using charcoal to cook.

01:25Since load shedding started, charcoal has become expensive because of high demand.

01:33One bag now fetches the equivalent of 16 to 20 euros.

01:37More trees are being felled to produce the charcoal.

01:44That means fewer trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which in turn drives climate change.

01:52Climate change is coming and we cannot rule that out.

01:57It is a force that has exposed us, our vulnerability.

02:02The issue at hand is why are we moving so slowly to onboard other forms of energy.

02:11Zambia currently generates less than 1% of its electricity from solar power.

02:16That's including power from mini-grids like this one in Ngwerere, a community of a thousand people north of Lusaka.

02:24The people here only got electricity four years ago.

02:28Their lives improved drastically.

02:30We would listen to music, watch football and the news.

02:37Many people have drowned in the Ngwerere stream.

02:40Watching the news, we realized that we needed to warn our children not to go there.

02:50Now, many residents are upset because the private energy company switched off the mini-grid two weeks ago.

02:56It's only designed for 300 households, but many more had connected without paying.

03:04The entire community is now affected just because a few people connected to the grid illegally.

03:11Since the grid stopped supplying electricity, residents have had to make alternative arrangements at much higher cost.

03:19I would really ask that they come and reconnect us.

03:26We are struggling a lot.

03:28We can't afford to keep paying to charge our phones on a daily basis.

03:32Please reconnect us.

03:34About 60 kilometers further north, things are moving fast.

03:42In the Tsamba region, a flagship solar project was built in just one year.

03:47The 100 megawatt plant is due to go online in May 2025.

03:52It's just one of several mega projects in the pipeline.

03:55By the end of 2025, Zambia aims to generate over 1,000 megawatts of electricity from solar power.

04:04That will also create urgently needed jobs.

04:08The Tsamba solar came at a time when the nation and the chiefdom was gifling with drought.

04:15So, of course, some level of poverty was high.

04:20So, it came and provided about 1,300 job opportunities for the local people.

04:26They've gained experience in solar installation and solar power plant construction.

04:33The plant has been built by a Chinese company on behalf of state energy provider Zesco.

04:38The price tag, $100 million.

04:41Zesco is paying 30% of that directly.

04:44The rest has come from loans.

04:46A study beforehand aimed to minimize harmful consequences of the project.

04:51Part of the environmental impact assessment was to ensure that we need to get the effects of clearing such a huge...

05:03Of course, there were some people that were displaced.

05:06That's the social impact.

05:07We made sure those people were compensated.

05:10And also, on the environmental aspect, we have maintained the natural vegetation of the area.

05:16Zambia is investing massively in solar.

05:20But a new one-sided dependency poses risks.

05:23As extreme weather events continue, flash floods and storms could damage the solar plants.

05:29The country needs a broad-based power supply that can cope with extreme weather, says Kawemuanga.

05:37He's a climate change expert at the University of Zambia.

05:41He says all options should be considered, including more wind power and geothermal energy, too.

05:46I think the Minister of Energy have been able to identify up to 80-something of the hot spots that Jothemo can actually be done.

05:58Except the challenge has been that exploration for Jothemo and even installation is quite expensive.

06:04So maybe this is why we haven't done as much.

06:07Meanwhile, barber Andrew Simezie has come up with his own solution.

06:12He now uses a battery-powered trimmer and recharges the batteries using his solar panel on the roof.

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