Zambia is building a 300MW thermal power plant under a grid offtake agreement with the state utility, as the country moves to reduce a structural dependence on hydropower that left industrial users — including its critical copper mining sector — severely exposed during the 2024 drought.
Ever Great Energy and majority partner Wonderful Group Services are developing the plant, with Singapore-based Ziquan Group holding the turnkey engineering, procurement, and construction scope. Ziquan has previously delivered thermal plants in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and China.
The first phase comprises two 150MW units using circulating fluidised bed combustion (CFBC) technology — a method that burns fuel in a suspended mixture to improve efficiency and reduce emissions — supported by a water treatment facility and dedicated transmission infrastructure. The plant will sell power to ZESCO (Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation), the national utility, under a power purchase agreement.
A second phase could expand total capacity to 600MW within five years of the first phase being completed, subject to conditions precedent being finalised.
ZCCM-IH (ZCCM Investments Holdings), the state investment holding company with stakes across Zambian mining and energy assets, said it is engaging constructively with the relevant authorities and is confident in the merits of the transaction.
The urgency behind the project is structural. Hydropower supplies more than 80% of Zambia’s installed generation capacity, while copper mining — the backbone of the national economy — consumes roughly one-third of all electricity produced. That combination proved damaging in 2024, when drought conditions reduced reservoir levels and triggered widespread load-shedding that disrupted industrial output.
The thermal addition represents a deliberate pivot toward grid diversification, introducing a dispatchable generation source that is not dependent on rainfall. For mining operators and other large industrial consumers, firm baseload capacity is a prerequisite for sustained production — making the ZESCO offtake arrangement commercially significant beyond the power sector itself.
Zambia’s grid challenges mirror a broader pattern across southern and eastern Africa, where hydropower-heavy systems have proven vulnerable to increasingly erratic rainfall linked to climate variability. The region has seen similar diversification pushes in Zimbabwe and Malawi, as governments and utilities seek to insulate industrial economies from weather-driven supply shocks.
