Zambia’s government plans to launch a tender for PV projects that will reach up to about 20 MW in the early months of 2018. The project will be developed under the solar energy incentive schemes.
Zambia’s 100 MW tender comes as the first part of the GET FIT Zambia program launched December 7, 2017, which now stands as the official implementation program for the country’s REFiT Strategy program put together with support from German Development Bank KFW. The idea of the program was to accelerate private investments in renewable energy projects throughout the country – small and medium-sized projects.
The government through the REFiT strategy plans to allocate about 200 of PV as well as renewable energy capacity to projects ranging from small to medium scale, with a size of at least 20MW. And procurement will be over a period of 3 years. Eligible technologies include; Solar PV, hydro, biomass, geothermal, wind power, and waste energy.
As part of the plan for the 100MW solar tender, the Zambia government concludes that projects selected will sell power to Zesco, the local state-owned power company under a long-term PPA. Projects are also to be located near substations that have been tested and confirmed to be very reliable. The testing will be carried out by Zesco in conjunction with the KFW.
The Zambia government has also said that the entire substations used for both round one and two of the country’s Scaling Solar program will not be eligible. And before the launching of the request for the tender’s qualification phase, partners from the Ministry of Energy and GET FiT Zambia will first and foremost organize a private sector workshop in Lusaka.
The Ministry of Energy has formally launched the REFit Strategy in October 2017, after Zambia’s cabinet approved it in July.
In the month of April, the Industrial Development Corporation Limited (IDC) issued a prequalification request basically for the construction of utility-scale PV plants in the entire country. As a result of this tender, the financial institution owned by the state saddled with the responsibility of promoting industrial development and economic growth, invited developers from the private sector to compete for the right to finance, develop, construct, operate, as well as to maintain utility-scale solar PV IPP projects.
In the month of February, Zambia had green-lit from World Bank to get funds as well as support for the creation of new solar PV with a capacity of 500MW. The IDC was previously mandated by the government of Zambia to install solar power, with at least a capacity of 600MW to address the power challenges in the country. And the company, under the Scaling Solar initiative, has implemented two 50MW solar projects.
