Lusaka — “In many of the rural areas, there is no grid connection because the infrastructure is not developed, and the cost of that infrastructure is truly enormous.”
Solar power has been heavily promoted as an answer to Africa’s energy needs, but the transition to large-scale adoption is fraught with challenges, including high costs, logistical barriers, and the need for climate-resilient infrastructure amid increasingly extreme weather.
In Kabwata, a bustling suburb of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, unprecedented power outages in 2024 brought daily life to a standstill after the worst drought in half a century throttled hydroelectric power supplies, which typically provide a third of the nation’s electricity.
Make-up artist Enoch Lambo, 39, was unable to serve clients without electricity to power his UV light for nail treatments. Nearby, 38-year-old barber Obey Chisaya could only open his shop during brief, unpredictable periods when there was power. Primary school teacher Ruth Saukamba, 33, rushed to finish marking papers before nightfall left her in darkness.
“We had maybe five hours of electricity a day,” Lambo told The New Humanitarian. “Sometimes I was days without power. It really affected my business.”
The drought was the result of an El Niño – an increasingly frequent climatic event in southern Africa – which scorched harvests, left millions of people food insecure, and led to the government declaring a state of emergency.
With 87% of Zambia’s electricity coming from hydropower, Zambia’s generation capacity plummeted as lakes and rivers dried up. Major facilities like the 1,080 mega-watt Kariba Dam faced near-total shutdown as Lake Kariba approached record-low levels.
“I think we have seen that the over-dependence on hydropower may not have worked too well for the country,” Chembo Sichinga, manager of renewable energy at Zambia’s Energy Regulation Board (ERB), told The New Humanitarian. “This is a call for us to divert our energy mix from a very high dependence on hydro generation to alternative sources of energy.”
The race to harness solar
Solar power, in a country blessed with lots of sunshine, seems like a common sense solution. “It has saved my business, for sure,” said Lambo of the small solar panel he uses for illumination. Chisaya is also cutting hair again with a solar-powered razor, while Saukamba uses two solar-powered lights in her home at night to continue grading papers.
This shift to solar is reflected on a much larger scale, with the Zambian government partnering with multiple international entities in 2024 to develop solar energy projects aimed at boosting Zambia’s generation capacity by more than a third.
Projects include a power purchase agreement with Canada’s SkyPower Global, which is expected to supply 1,000 megawatts to power four million homes. The African Development Bank (AfDB) has allocated $8 million for a 25-megawatt solar plant in western Zambia, while a Turkish/Zambian private partnership is developing a 60-megawatt solar plant with battery storage, expected to power 65,000 households by September 2025.
The government’s Presidential Solar Initiative aims to improve Zambia’s energy mix to at least 30% non-hydro renewables by 2030 – up from 1.2% in late 2024 – marking a significant step toward diversifying Zambia’s energy portfolio.
The scramble for solar is emblematic of a broader trend across Africa of an accelerating shift toward renewable energy adoption in response to climate challenges, as Africa bids to bring power to the 600 million people across the continent who don’t have electricity.
But Zambia also serves as something of a cautionary tale.
A 2015 International Finance Corporation initiative – the World Bank’s private sector arm – tried to scale solar power in the country by providing a standardised process and financial support to attract private investment. But the scheme faltered due to unrealistic pricing expectations, macroeconomic instability, and delayed incentives for developers.
It also faced challenges with a lack of transparency around subsidies and tax incentives, which led to unrealistic expectations about the cost of solar energy and ultimately caused projects in other countries to fall apart when they expected the same low prices.
This has helped shape the current imbalance, where 70% of Africa’s solar capacity is concentrated in just three countries – South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco. The rest of the continent is left struggling with weak utility infrastructure and debt-laden governments, which have left many nations unable to move forward with their own solar ambitions.
The risks of rushed planning
While new efforts in Zambia appear to be backed by clearer agreements, diverse international partnerships, and promises to increase the nation’s generation capacity, similar risks remain.
A rushed or poorly planned transition could introduce new vulnerabilities, such as high costs, infrastructure gaps, and increased exposure to extreme weather events – factors that could still undermine long-term energy security.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts that southern Africa will face more frequent flash floods and prolonged droughts, which could wreak further havoc on the region’s energy systems.
Chris Yelland, managing director of EE Business Intelligence, an energy consultancy firm in South Africa, warned about the risks of poor planning in energy generation. He emphasised the importance of spreading energy resources across the country to ensure resilience against climate-related disruptions.
“You can have periods where it’s cloudy over a portion of the country, or there’s no wind, and if it happens to be in an area where you put a lot of generation resources, well, then you lose all your generation,” the told The New Humanitarian.
South Africa invests “about [$16] billion” to enable the connection of lots of smaller power plants all around the country, and that strengthening of the grid is critical to “ensure resilience”, said Yelland.
But poorer nations like Zambia – that contribute little to global greenhouse gas emissions – lack the financial muscle of South Africa.
At present, China accounts for 55% of Africa’s total solar panel supply, but transport times are months-long, which complicates any large-scale rollout. Price is another factor. Generating one megawatt of solar power using Chinese equipment – enough to supply 4,000 homes – currently costs $100,000, and that’s before factoring in import or installation costs.
“In many of the rural areas, there is no grid connection because the infrastructure is not developed, and the cost of that infrastructure is truly enormous,” noted Yelland. “If you wait for government to put in the infrastructure, you’re going to wait forever.”
Small, not always sustainable
Even with available funding, challenges persist. Initially, solar mini-grids – like those promised by both the Turkish-Zambian partnership and the AfDB – were seen as a promising solution for electrifying rural Africa, offering a sustainable and scalable means to address the energy crisis, particularly in remote areas.
But a 2023 study of five mini-grids in Zambia found none to be fully sustainable. The rural communities where they were could not afford the operating costs, needing subsidy support, while poor planning and substandard components also undermined performance.
International funding is available, but it primarily comes in the form of development grants rather than private investment, due to the difficulty of generating returns from rural solar projects. Zambia’s mining sector, with its substantial energy needs and more predictable financial returns, presents a more attractive opportunity than cash-strapped households for investment in renewables.
Tracy Ledger, an anthropologist leading the Just Transition Programme at South Africa’s Public Affairs Research Institute, criticises international funding bodies like the World Bank for pushing green energy generating projects, such as hydro and solar, without adequately considering their climate resilience.
“How much effort are international development finance institutions doing to make sure that these big infrastructure investments, which are supposed to leverage economic growth and development, are genuinely climate resilient?” she asked.
Using Zambia’s Kariba Dam – built with support from the World Bank in 1956 – as an example, she noted: “If you just looked at the history of the weather in Africa, it would be immediately apparent that hydro is risky.”
“I think there’s a lot of research and development going on on how to just make sure that these systems become more efficient,” said Sichinga from Zambia’s ERB, without specifying how or when these advancements might be applied, leaving uncertainties about the timeline and practicality of Zambia’s efforts.
This underscores the challenge for Zambia and nations worldwide: addressing urgent energy crises with immediate solutions while simultaneously planning for resilient, effective, and sustainable energy systems.
Edited by Obi Anyadike
