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The Zimbabwe-Zambia Energy Project Summit was held in Livingstone, Zambia on 26 to 28 November 2025. It was attended by key stakeholders in the energy sector from both Zimbabwe and Zambia, as well as various African jurisdictions such as South Africa, Kenya and Rwanda.
The Summit hosted various sessions such as (i) meeting the demands of intensive energy users (ii) Renewable energy opportunities (iii) Innovative Financing Mechanisms (iv) Zambia project presentations (v) Implementing regional transmission and interconnection projects and (vi) how traders are transforming the energy market.
It was clear that Zambia has been affected by climate change and being a country that places heavy reliance on hydropower with 85% of its electricity supply coming from hydropower, the recent drought has left the country in an energy deficit. Stakeholders expressed the need to streamline processes to efficiently get megawatts on the grid and a need for a diversified energy mix. This includes policy consistency, particularly relating to setting wheeling charges, institutional capacity and all stakeholders buy-in to processes and negotiation timelines that would ensure that projects translate to implementation (this process currently takes up to a year). Governments are very supportive of renewable energy and the regulatory environment, particularly in Zambia where there is Governmental support for currency exchange risk, tax incentives and repatriation of funds, is such that it promotes investor confidence in projects in country. The open market is also evidence of this governmental support, where investors are free to chose their offtakers and the currency of their power purchase agreements.
The need for expansion of the transmission grid was acknowledged as a growth area, but small renewable energy solutions (micro-grid projects) are key to meeting the Government's target of electrifying all rural areas by the end of 2026. There is growing demand in both Zambia and Zimbabwe for power and major investment is required in the region. In Zambia, it is expected that the current renewable energy capacity which makes up 10% of the energy supply will be at 33% by 2030 at an expected 10GW. In Zimbabwe, small renewable energy solutions and grid supply is expected to be at 5GW by 2030.
Chimuka Nketani, Director of Investments from the Zambia Development Agency noted that Zambia has 6GW of hydropower potential, 2.3GW of solar potential (with only 76MW currently installed) and 6GW of wind potential, with several projects under development.
Mafayo Ziba from the Ministry of Energy, Zambia noted that US$11.6 billion is required by 2030 to develop on-grid and off grid energy projects to meet the growing demands of the industries in Zambia. This includes Zambia's ambition to produce 3 million tonnes of copper by 2031.
Zimbabwe requires 1.2GW per annum for the next 5 years to meeting existing and growing demand for electricity supply.
There is a call on all stakeholders to play their part in ensuring the electricity demand from the growing sectors across the agricultural, industrial and mining sectors is achieved in the medium to long term. This includes supportive policies from government, risk management and innovative financing to improve affordability. The finance sector expressed the need for credit enhancement mechanisms to be considered for bankability, such as payment risk mitigants, although noting that sovereign guarantees for national utilities was becoming a thing of the past. It was also noted that all markets are not the same and while in more developed existing markets, projects are developed for such market, in Africa, the projects are required in order to develop the market. An opinion was expressed that the lending institutions need to allow a debt service grace period of up top two years after a project becomes operational in order for the market, driven by the project itself, to develop. It was also suggested that banks should see the investment in power infrastructure as one that will expand their business because of the commercial opportunities it presents for potential banking customers, rather than measuring the investment on the return earned on the project financing only.
Open access in Zambia was praised as a progressive move for traders and Zambia is in the process of mapping out the role of an independent system operator and how this will be implemented as well as the regulatory reforms that will be required, which should be tabled for government consideration during 2026. Lusemtwa Hydropower was the first IPP in Zambia and the first private generator to be a member of SAPP. Trading is viewed as a natural progression in the renewable energy market given the open access and current energy deficit, improving liquidity with flexible pricing and tenure so that generators can focus on their core business. There was sentiment from some stakeholders that public buy-in of traders need to be achieved as they are currently viewed as having no assets and taking no real risk in relation to the process of buying and selling electricity.
The progress of debt financing projects in the region has improved, with longer maturity periods of up to 15 years and support for foreign currency funding for larger projects. Local banks face challenges with providing long-term debt or anything in excess of a 3 year maturity. Challenges experienced include the availability of foreign currency, such as US Dollars, and the sovereign rating of the country which affects the ability to secure funding. Although Zambia has draft regulations in place which require transactions to be in Kwacha, there needs to be consideration for larger infrastructure projects to be excluded from this requirement. Currently the draft only permits trading outside of Zambia (such as on the SAPP market) to be in foreign currency. The interest rates for funding in local currency are high, which affects project affordability and viability.
The conference also hosted the signing ceremony between ZESCO, Kiyona and GreenCo for the close of rooftop solar projects in Zambia.
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