REA spends US$50m annually  on rural electrification

Tue, 04 Jul 2017 10:56:35 +0000

By BUUMBA CHIMBULU

THE Rural Electrification Authority (REA) has revealed that it is currently spending US$50 million annually to connect electricity in rural areas through small projects.

REA technical director, Patrick Mubanga, said the Authority’s strategy was to increase access to electricity in rural areas to 51 percent by 2030 from the current 4.4 percent.

“The access is quite low in rural areas standing at 4.4 percent and our goal is to push it to 51 percent by the end of this year. We have done a master plan and a few things came out. We have targeted about 1217 areas that we want to connect by the year 2030 for us to push to 51 percent.

“There is a cost to that, every year we are supposed to spend about US$50 million for us to push that access and we are using various technology such as solar,” he said.

He was speaking in an interview at the just ended seventh Zambia International Mining and Energy Conference (ZIMEC) in Lusaka held under the theme: ‘Mining and Energy Development in Zambia-Increasing Economic Activities’.

Mr Mubanga said the Authority was currently working on renewable energy projects.

He said REA had constructed a 60 kilowatts solar plant in Samfya which was supplying power to a community of 450, 000 people.

“The other one is we are developing two plants, one in Kafue national park and the other one is Lungu, a new district which is also close to Samfya. We are doing a mini-hydro project in Mwinilunga which is about 640 KW.