As Zambian hydroelectric power runs dry, can solar energy plug the gap?

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00:00Southern Africa is suffering through the worst drought in a century and countries like Namibia,

00:05Zimbabwe, Zambia, the rising temperatures and lack of rain is worsened by the El Nino phenomenon

00:12and climate change. More than 68 million people are facing food insecurity and water shortages

00:18and the region which relies heavily on hydropower has also seen its supply of electricity hit hard.

00:25Hydroelectric dams provide more than 80% of Zambia's power but they have dried up.

00:30It declared a national emergency back in February and after months of blackout the government has

00:35recently only been able to guarantee about three hours of power a day in parts of the country.

00:41Now it's also removed VAT on some solar power products in the hopes of filling the gap.

00:47Diana Zulu works with the SolarAid charity and joins me now from Lusaka.

00:52Now Diana we'd hoped to get you envisioned for this interview but as we've just mentioned there

00:58power supplies can be a bit unpredictable so thank you very much for joining us on the phone.

01:0517 plus hours a day without power as far as you you're seeing it how are Zambians coping and what

01:11does this mean for their lives? Oh it's become very hard with time you can imagine what it's

01:18like to not have power uh initially the the official announcement is that we should have

01:24power consecutively for three hours but that's not happening like today we haven't had any so

01:30I have no electricity I'm in the dark I also have no water so it's it's very bad the impact

01:37obviously is very huge. Now solar sales have shot up do you think that that will last are there

01:46lessons to be learned here in terms of of the future energy mix that Zambia might try and

01:51cultivate off the back of this drought? Well SolarAid has been operating in Zambia for the

01:57past 15 years and our mission is has been to reduce energy poverty in the hardest to reach

02:05places which have no access to electricity but what we're experiencing now is that everybody

02:10has been affected from those in the rural areas and urban areas and so like you've mentioned

02:18our sales have shot up by 500 percent compared to this time last year and we're continuing to

02:26wanting to reach more people obviously we want to cover 100 percent of the population

02:31but for all of this to happen more funding is needed and obviously we need to be having

02:38discussions on a global level on what the future looks like as this has impacted sub-Saharan Africa

02:46so bad as witnessed by what we're experiencing right now. And have you had much support from

02:52the government in terms of promoting access to solar products? They're sort of promoting what

02:57is called the solar explosion in the meantime the immediate measures that they put in place

03:03is they have lifted all taxes and duties on solar related products when you're bringing

03:10them in the country but that's obviously tied to household use only. With regards to partnerships

03:17of course at SolarAid we are open to collaborating more with partners who are doing related works

03:24like we are. Support from the government other than the lift of the duties and that on

03:32the solar products that we import it hasn't gone beyond that but of course there is talk

03:38of doing more work as we have all heard that the Kariba Dam which is our main source of the

03:45hydro electricity that we have is most likely to shut down so the support is there it's just

03:51that maybe we were not very prepared for this but yes we have had received support.

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