SAPP EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING OFFICIALLY OPEN IN ZAMBIA AS GOVERNMENT URGES ORGAN TO SEEK SOLUTIONS TO CURRENT REGIONAL ENERGY CHALLENGES
The 56th Executive Committee Meeting of the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP) has officially kicked off today, Thursday, 4 April 2024 in Lusaka, with the Zambian Government urging the organ to push for initiatives that will provide solutions to current energy challenges in the region. Officially opening the Executive Committee Meeting at Ciela Resort, Lusaka, Energy Minister, Peter Kapala observed that economies in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) member countries have continued to thrive in fulfilment of the SADC industrialisation thrust hence an urgent need for power. “I, therefore, call upon you as experts in the field to continue to apply your minds and bring to the table solutions that will keep the lights on, commerce ticking, industry running and agriculture flourishing even in these challenging environments. Electricity is one of the critical driving forces for economic development and you are at the centre of making it work,” he said. Mr. Kapala noted that the SADC region faces electricity challenges which include insufficient generation capacity to meet the growing power demand whose shortfall is close to eight thousand (8,000 MW) Mega Watts. “Lack of adequate transmission and distribution infrastructure to deliver electricity to end users, high transmission, and power distribution losses, which increase cost of supply to consumers, limited regional trade of power due to transmission constraints particularly along the central transmission corridor, and the effects of climate change on generation production are some of the challenges facing electricity service industry in the SADC region.” He urged the organ to use the meeting to look at various issues ranging from planning, project preparation, operations, electricity markets and environmental areas. “This meeting allows you to address the issues I have mentioned here. The SADC region has huge energy resource potential in the form of coal, gas, hydro and renewable energies including solar, wind, biomass and geothermal that need to be exploited in an economically sound and sustainable manner for the benefit of the whole region. I take it that your deliberations are part of the vital input to this process.” Meanwhile outgoing SAPP Chairperson and ZESCO Limited Managing Director, Eng. Victor Benjamin Mapani said SAPP utilities are faced with huge power deficits which have resulted in slowing down of economies in the region. “Honourable Minister, we believe that in the SAPP there are solutions to attend to this. The SAPP continues to grow, we are getting more brains on the table; more ideas; marketing is becoming different and more divergent. Along side, we have our sponsors; the financial institutions as you have seen they are now actually sitting together with us because we are in the business finding solutions.”