Charlotte Lamb

Editorial & Content Manager

Charlotte recently joined EnergyNet as Content & Editorial Manager, bringing over a decade of experience in all things content, communications and storytelling. Having worked across agencies and global brands, she now leads the editorial direction of Energy News Network, helping to tell the stories shaping Africa’s energy sector. Having lived between Zambia and England most of her life, Africa is very much home from home. It’s also where she adopted Pippa, a rescue dog who made the journey back to England with her in 2019. Outside of work, Charlotte can usually be found re-reading Jane Austen, proving she’s worryingly close to being word-perfect in most of the Gavin & Stacey script or defending a playlist that happily skips between Michael Jackson, 90’s R&B, Eric Clapton, Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Latest news

Mining & Minerals

Minerals need corridors, and corridors cross borders

An estimated $8.6 trillion of what lies under African ground is unmined, much of it stranded without the transport and power to move it. At AEF, the Energy for Growth Hub's Gyude Moore, AFC's Ziyanda Mpakama and Transnet's Andile Sangqu set out the case for shared, open-access routes serving more than one mine.

One market, not fifty-four

Africa has more countries than any other continent, and a power system fragmented along every border between them. At AEF 2026, the AfDB's Wale Shonibare, Africa GreenCo's Lion Mashiri and Ndola Energy's Adrian Silwimba argued that continental-scale projects only become financeable when electricity can be traded as freely as it is generated.

Pioneering doesn’t pay, but it might just change Africa

Kwama Energy's Ilute solar project reached financial close in January as what its chairman Sipho Phiri calls Africa's first non-recourse merchant power station. He spoke to ENN about why bankability, not sunlight or wind, is the real constraint on Zambian power, and why proving one model matters more than any single plant.

West Africa is wiring itself into one market

A four-hour test announced last November ran the region's grids as a single synchronous network for the first time, and the power pool behind it wants that permanent by mid-year. The World Economic Forum's Rakesh Bohra and Justine Roche set out the reforms, and the $36 billion pipeline, asking investors to pay attention.

For Africa, gas is now a question of how, not whether

Volatile prices and a shifting geopolitical map have not cooled Africa's appetite for gas. At AEF, Ghana's Sulemana Abubakari, Genesis Energy's Melissa Sikwila and Siemens Energy's Marcus Nelle argued that gas remains the baseload an industrialising continent leans on, and that the harder work is building the value chain to use it at home.

Africa’s pension funds look to power its energy future

The capital to build Africa's energy system is partly already on the continent, held in its pension and sovereign funds. At AEF, the Public Investment Corporation's Zama Khanyile and the Eskom pension fund's Phathutshedzo Madogo set out why that money struggles to reach early-stage projects, and what would change it.

Transmission becomes an asset class

Africa's new generation is outrunning the lines that carry it, and governments are short of balance sheet to build more. At AEF, Africa50's Moshood Abolade and Nabil Saïmi and Kenya's Kefa Seda set out a privately financed, programmatic model for the grid, proven in Chile, Brazil, India and Peru.

Batoka Gorge: The energy is already in the river

The proposed Batoka Gorge Hydro-Electric Scheme has moved into a new phase, with Zambia and Zimbabwe seeking experienced development partners to deliver a project that could add significant power capacity to the region. Speaking at AEF, the Zambezi River Authority and Southern African Power Pool highlighted the need for investment to turn the Zambezi’s existing potential into electricity for a market facing continued supply challenges.