Zambia to get 2 GW of new solar under pact with UAE

Zambia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) and a joint development agreement to build 2,000 MW of large-scale solar farms throughout the Southern African country, Zambia’s president Hakainde Hichilema said.

The agreements will lead to the creation of a joint venture (JV) between UAE’s renewables developer Masdar and Zambia’s state-owned power utility Zesco to push the solar projects on an investment estimated at USD 2 billion (EUR 1.85bn).

“This is not a loan but a capital injection in which the Zambian people, through ZESCO, will be partners in shareholding,” Hichilema said in a statement on his Facebook page.

The projects will be developed in phases, starting with an installation of 500 MW, the statement reads.

As the president remarked, Zambia developed only 3,500 MW of generation capacity in the 58 years as an independent state. The megawatts from the Masdar-Zesco JV will be online within the next few years, Hichilema said.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.924)

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