Lusaka Speech
egc...@africaonline.co.zw
Keynote address to a Conference in Lusaka Zambia on the 27th of August 2025 on Energy.
Why power security is vital for business.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak at the start of this very important conference on energy.
Since the 1700’s in Europe, energy in all its different forms has been the backbone of progress. It has driven initiative and enterprise, raised living standards and transformed the global economy.
The first sources of energy were water and then coal, right up to the end of the 19th Century. In the 20th Century the king was carbon based fuels and gas with electricity emerging in the mid-19th Century and now dominating the 21st Century.
The sources of electrical energy remain largely coal fired steam, hydroelectric power from our dams and rivers, nuclear generated power and now wind and solar power.
We should never underestimate the importance of electrical energy. China, which has lifted a billion people in 50 years from abject poverty and hunger, has become the industrial emperor in the global economy and now the second largest GDP in the world, has done so on the back of coal based power generation. It now produces and consumes double the electricity of the USA at tariffs that are one third of Europe’s and half of the USA.
This energy revolution is the main reason why the GDP of China has doubled 130 times in 50 years while most of Africa, including Zambia and Zimbabwe have stood still in GDP terms.
What we need to recognise, in addition to this historical analysis, is that electrical energy is now the key component in what we are calling the new economy. We have totally underestimated the impact and importance of the IT discoveries and the importance of artificial intelligence in this new economic environment.
Data Centers are driving demand for energy at a pace that many say cannot be satisfied by existing electrical energy technology and plant and equipment. A single Data Center outside Los Angeles uses more electrical energy than the city itself.
Business in all its different forms requires energy and in particular electrical energy. We require power that is available 24/7, available in a form that is stable and a consistent quality and is reasonably priced. In many parts of Europe where power tariffs are now at record heights above 30 to 40 US cents per kWh, they have signed their industrial death warrants.
In southern Africa, the utilities that have served us since colonial occupation and national Independence have incurred liabilities that will haunt them, and us, for decades as we work our way out of the mess we are in. They can no longer afford to make the huge investments that are now required to meet our current demand and future growth.
We are lumbered with ageing infrastructure and power plants and are struggling with power shortages that will cripple our economies going forward.
What is the solution?
We have to harness new technologies that are creating opportunities to generate power, distribute the new generation capacity to centers of demand and to mobilise the resources needed to make that possible.
The Southern African Power Pool in Harare reports regional demand for power today at 80 gigawatts. The regional shortfall is about 25 gigawatts but growing at 5 gigawatts a year. If tackled using traditional approaches of large scale power plants built over raw materials (water or coal) then we are looking at an immediate investment bill of 30 to 40 billion US dollars.
With regional utilities already heavily indebted with nearly 50 billion US dollars of debt, this is an impossible demand.
It is now up to the private sector to pick up the ball and run with it. In Zimbabwe we have brought together all the major power consumers in the economy, currently using half of all the power available, and we are sponsoring 35 new power generation projects which will, by 2030 be able to supply over 8 gigawatts of electrical energy at a cost of less than 10 cents per kWh.
What we have discovered is that if we combine the buying capacity of our private sector, which also has the capacity to pay for electricity in a hard currency and therefore service external liabilities, we can source the finance required at a cost of as low as 20 per cent of the cost of borrowings by the State. We can also secure the resources required.
New technologies allow for distributed power generation at very low costs. You can generate solar electricity today for 2 cents a kWh. Large batteries to store and manage power deliveries are now costing 15 per cent of what they were 3 years ago, it is now cheaper to store energy than to generate electricity using traditional technologies.
As with all such revolutionary changes, this brings with it great advances and some threats. I worry about the ability of utilities to stay in operation when they have the burden of aging old technology plants and debt. They control the national grid, which whatever we do about the future, will remain essential and must be maintained and developed. Perhaps separation of this function from the generation industry is the answer.
Whatever path we choose, the development of our economies, creating the capacity to support our people in all the different ways required, will take electricity and the main task of our governments is to make that possible by facilitating the participation and operation of the private sector.
Eddie Cross
Chairman of the Intensive Energy Users Group in Zimbabwe