The situation in Malawi’s neighboring country, Zambia is worsening following one of the severest drought. Despite having the mighty Zambezi River and the massive hydro-powered Kariba Dam, Zambia is currently grappling with the worst electricity blackouts.
The crisis is so severe that cities and towns across the country are sometimes without electricity for three consecutive days, with people counting themselves lucky if the lights come on for an hour or two.
The power cuts have come as a shock to the 43% of Zambians who are connected to the grid and have taken electricity for granted all their lives.
But one of the severest droughts in decades – caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon – has decimated Zambia’s power-generation capacity making their lives similar to their neighbor, Malawi who for decades have been living in constant blackouts with or without droughts.
It is reported that bars and restaurants which have generators have turned into hotspots for charging phones rather that beer drinking and eating joints.
There is also a booming business of people making money by charging the phones of those without power.
Zambia sources up to 84% of its electricity from water reservoirs such as lakes and rivers, while only 13% comes from coal. Contributions from solar, diesel and heavy fuel oil are even lower, accounting for 3%.
As reported by Kennedy Gondwe, for several weeks, the crisis was compounded while the country’s only coal-fired power plant, Maamba Energy, was not operating at maximum capacity as it underwent routine maintenance work.
On Wednesday, there was finally some good news when Minister of Energy Makozo Chikote said the plant was now fully operational, and Zambians would have at least three hours of electricity a day.
President Hakainde Hichilema declared the drought a national disaster in February but the government has been unable to solve the energy crisis because Zambia is heavily reliant on the Kariba Dam for its electricity.
A financial crunch also severely restricted the government’s ability to import power as suppliers wanted payment upfront, though a spokesman for state-owned power utility Zesco, Matongo Maumbi, said that electricity was being imported from Mozambique and South Africa to ease the crisis, especially in the mining industry – Zambia’s main export earner and source of foreign currency.
Located on the Zambezi, the fourth-longest river in Africa, Kariba was built in the 1950s and is the reservoir for the country’s largest underground power station, Kariba North Bank Power Station. A power station on the other bank serves Zimbabwe.
But because of the drought that has led to parts of the river drying up, only one of the six turbines at Zambia’s power station is operating, resulting in the generation of a paltry 7% of the 1,080 MW installed at Kariba.
The situation has forced many families to be filling buckets – or bath tubs – with water, hoping it will last until the lights are back, and toilets can be flushed.
All of this has left Zambians frustrated and angry. They point out that the blackouts highlight the failure of successive governments to plan ahead – something that President Hichilema’s administration has now pledged to do.
Mr Maumbi said that Zesco was investing in more energy sources, including solar plants, so that dependency on hydro-power falls to around 60%.
But Zambia’s focus is not only on green energy – coal is also in the mix.
In July, the energy regulator approved plans to build only the country’s second coal-fired power plant.
It is the dirtiest fossil fuel, producing the most greenhouse gases when burnt, but the government feels that to avoid a similar crisis in the future, it has little option but to press ahead.