ZESCO BOARD CHAIRPERSON SHARES RENEWABLE ENERGY INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES WITH ROTARIANS

Rotary Club Palisa of Lusaka is an extension of Rotary International whose purpose is to bring together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian services, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and to advance goodwill and peace around the world. On 21 July 2023, Rotarians converged at Lusaka’s Pamodzi Hotel, to better understand and explore opportunities presented by the recent call for more investment in sustainable renewable energy with guest speaker being ZESCO Limited Board Chairperson, Mr. Vickson Ncube. “We support communities and change lives focusing on the areas of environment conservation, economic development, water and sanitation health, basic education and literacy, maternal health and child welfare, disease prevention and treatment, peace and conflict resolution. “We invited Mr Ncube to share his views on the role played by renewable energy in Zambia's sustainable development. This topic is of great interest to us because we have an environment conservation project in Zambia. Mr Ncube encouraged us to continue actively taking part in environment conservation projects to enlarge sources of renewable energy,” said Connie Karuku, president elect Rotary Club Palisa of Lusaka. And in his presentation, Mr Ncube encouraged Rotarians to take advantage of the investment opportunities in the Zambian energy sector. “Zambia has a huge opportunity for renewable energy investments. ZESCO has been signing Power Purchase Agreements with potential power project developers. Right now, we are sitting on close to 4,500 MW of renewable energy that is to come into Zambia, between now and the next 10 years. However, that may not be enough to meet the constantly growing demand for electricity. “This is where the opportunities lie for the Rotarians. We have this unmet demand, a lot of sun, and wind. If we can find the right partners that we can work with to bring solutions to the energy challenge in Zambia; we can do it the green way.” The Board Chairperson added that Rotarians had a rich relationship with communities which can be used to extend renewable energy investments. “Rotarians are people who like working with communities. There is an opportunity to provide off-the-grid energy solutions. Instead of looking for big power generation projects that require extensive power transmission and distribution networks, we can go to communities. “Find a small community and create a solar energy base just for that community, so that they are now on the grid. We need to wean our communities from charcoal production and consumption which is detrimental to the environment. We have a great opportunity in this country to get sustainable development through these solutions including off grid solutions where we can target the communities.” Government’s resolve to reduce dependence on hydroelectric power by shifting focus towards other renewable sources of energy such as wind, geothermal and solar has already started yielding positive results. However, the road to success rests on sound investment in renewable energy projects from local and foreign companies.