H.E. Honourable Olivier Rakotomalala

Every autumn I fly to Washington to catch up with the partners behind the Powering Africa Summit, and I came home from this year’s trip more certain than ever that our 12th edition next March is the place to be.

Desert Technologies’ 2025 sustainability report puts the CO₂ emissions its customers avoided last year at about 126,055 tonnes, as the Saudi clean energy company, which works across the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, reports more than 200MW of solar projects built or now under way.

JA and MBHE Valley Acres have signed an agreement at the Zimbabwe-Zambia Energy Projects Summit in Livingstone to take commercial and industrial solar and storage projects from development through to operation and maintenance, with Podium Energy providing finance for several projects that are now ready to build.

Linda Thompson, Managing Director of Mphepo Power, makes the case for wind in a Zambian grid built around hydro, after the Zambia Environmental Management Agency approved 350MW across the Unika I and II wind farms near Katete, developed in partnership with the Chewa people, ahead of the Zimbabwe-Zambia Energy Projects Summit.

Monie Captan, Deputy CEO for West Africa at Petrodex, used the official opening of the Zimbabwe-Zambia Energy Projects Summit in Livingstone to make the case for open electricity markets and cross-border trading, as Petrodex adds solar generation in Zambia and works through licensing to trade power inside Zimbabwe.

Opening the third Zimbabwe-Zambia Energy Projects Summit in Livingstone, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development, Yeukai Simbanegavi, set a target to end power imports by the end of 2027, resting on 1,365MW of private generation in the pipeline and licensing reforms that have cut the application fee for a generation licence to US$20.

Modaso Energy, part of MISA Group, and Zimbabwean developer Tatanga Energy announced at the Zimbabwe-Zambia Energy Projects Summit that they will develop the Guruve-Mazowe Hybrid Renewable Energy project in Mashonaland Central, pairing 128MW of wind with solar and battery storage behind one 100MW grid connection, with ZESA set as its main buyer.

Mzi Chizura, Business Improvement Manager at Caledonia Holdings Zimbabwe, tells ENN’s Let’s Talk Energy podcast why reliable electricity matters more to a mine than its price, and how Caledonia is building a steadier supply for Blanket Mine around solar generation and a new connection to the national grid.