Zambia

In July 2015, Zambia’s Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) signed an agreement with IFC to explore the development of two large-scale solar projects through Scaling Solar. The competitive auction organized by the Government of Zambia and through the program attracted 48 solar power developers, seven of whom submitted final proposals, and the bids yielded the lowest solar power tariffs in Africa to date.

Both plants have successfully been developed and went into operation at the beginning of 2019.

43%

of the population has access to electricity

6.02

US cents per kilowatt-hour – a record-low tariff

75.7 MW

of solar power added from Scaling Solar projects

Testimonials

ANDREW CHIPWENDE CEO, Industrial Development Corporation of Zambia

For quite a long time, we’ve had quite a bit of interest from the private sector in terms of investing in renewable energy in general, and in solar in particular. We haven’t had the coherent structure within which to implement this. I think with Scaling Solar, what we’ve been able to do is to develop a coherent, transparent process that the investor and investing public, the private sector, are able to work towards as well as the public institutions on the government side — that is, the IDC as investment vehicle and the state utility as off-taker, to have predictability and to have a clearly defined process that should be followed towards the attainment of this 600 megawatt target which has been set for renewable energy in Zambia.

Watch Video

View All Testimonials