Zambia Energy Infrastructure Procurement Guide 2026

Zambia’s installed generation capacity grew from 3,100 MW in 2021 to 4,576 MW in 2026, per Ministry of Energy figures reported in August 2026, and the government now targets 10,000 MW by 2031. Almost every piece of equipment behind that build-out, turbines, PV modules, transformers, gensets and batteries, is imported. This guide maps who buys it and how the deals get paid.

The buying pattern has a specific shape because of what happened in 2024. A severe drought cut hydropower output on a grid that was overwhelmingly hydro, and load shedding stretched to roughly 21 hours a day at the worst point. The recovery through 2025 and 2026 was bought with equipment: solar plants, thermal expansion, batteries and engine power. That procurement wave is still running.

What Zambia’s power sector is buying in 2026

Five product lines carry most of the current spend. Each has a different buyer and a different contracting route, which is why we cover them in separate equipment-level guides.

Sub-segment	Anchor demand in 2026	Primary buyers
Diesel and gas gensets	Mining captive and standby power after the drought years	Mines, contractors, factories, telecoms
Hydro turbines and rehab	2,800+ MW ZESCO hydro fleet, small-hydro IPPs	ZESCO, IPPs
Solar PV and EPC	841 MW installed, 1,000 MW target	ZESCO, CEC Renewables, IPPs
Transformers and transmission	Solar evacuation, Zambia-DRC interconnector upgrade	ZESCO, CEC
Battery energy storage	Leopards Hill 150 MW/600 MWh, grid-scale studies	Globeleq, ZESCO, mines

Diesel and gas gensets

Standby power is the sub-segment the drought built. Mines, cement plants, hospitals, telecom towers and Lusaka factories all bought engine capacity when the grid could not carry them, and most kept it. ZESCO ruled out nationwide load management for 2026 in June, but buyers treat that as a hydrology-dependent statement, not a guarantee. Sizing, pricing and import routes get their own treatment in our diesel genset guide for Zambia.

Hydroelectric turbines and plant rehabilitation

Hydro is still the backbone. ZESCO’s fleet centres on Kariba North Bank, Kafue Gorge Upper and the 750 MW Kafue Gorge Lower station commissioned in 2023, whose actual output swings with water allocation, so any MW figure needs a date attached. Procurement here means runners, governors, gates, control retrofits and drought-driven refurbishment scopes, plus a small-hydro IPP tail. Suppliers and bid routes are mapped in our hydroelectric turbine suppliers guide for Zambia.

Utility-scale and commercial solar

Solar is where the money moved. Capacity grew from 88 MW in 2021 to 841 MW in 2026 per Ministry of Energy data, against a 1,000 MW national target. ZESCO’s Chisamba complex reached 200 MW in July 2026 when Phase 2 added 100 MW for USD 70 million with Powerchina as EPC. CEC’s 136 MW Itimpi-2 plant, commissioned in May 2026, took the Itimpi complex to 196 MW.

Offtake structure matters as much as the plants. Chisamba Phase 1 sells under a 13-year PPA routed through GreenCo Power Services, primarily to First Quantum, which shows how mining offtake anchors solar financing here. We break down costs and contracting in our solar PV EPC cost guide for Zambia.

Transformers, substations and transmission

Every new plant needs evacuation. ZESCO’s 330 kV and 220 kV backbone is absorbing new solar injections, and CEC, the private transmission owner on the Copperbelt, has a USD 500 million plan covering solar build-out and an upgrade of the Zambia-DRC interconnector from 250 MW to 550 MW. Distribution transformer demand follows new connections and MFEZ industrial load. Ratings and bid mechanics are in our transformer suppliers guide for Zambia.

Battery energy storage systems

BESS moved from studies to a flagship in April 2026, when Globeleq launched the Leopards Hill project near Lusaka: 250 MWp of solar with a 150 MW/600 MWh battery, a grid connection agreement signed with ZESCO and financial close targeted for the end of 2026. USTDA is funding feasibility work on further grid-scale storage, and the mines are specifying batteries into captive hybrid plants. The project list and spec logic sit in our Zambia BESS project guide.

Who issues the RFQs

ZESCO is the vertically integrated parastatal: generation, transmission and distribution in one buyer, with subsidiaries such as Kariba North Bank Extension Power Corporation acting as project developers. It is the counterparty on most public-side equipment lots and on grid connection for every IPP.

CEC is the second utility most foreign suppliers have never heard of. Listed in Lusaka, it owns the Copperbelt transmission network, sells power to the mines, runs the DRC interconnector and is building its own solar fleet through CEC Renewables, funded partly by green bonds. It procures commercially, on company paper, outside public tender rules.

GreenCo Power Services buys as an intermediary offtaker, contracting IPP output and selling to mining and regional buyers through the Southern African Power Pool. Maamba Energy is expanding coal-fired capacity with a 300 MW Phase II; as of late August 2026 commissioning should be treated as expected rather than confirmed.

Then there are the mining houses themselves. First Quantum, Barrick Lumwana, Mopani and KCM procure captive solar, gensets and storage directly, the same buyer set mapped in our Zambia industrial procurement guide. The Energy Regulation Board licenses generators and reviews tariffs, so its decisions preview where private capex lands next.

How power equipment deals get paid

The FX story is unusually good right now, with dates attached. The kwacha is market-determined and traded near an all-time weak point of about 29 per dollar in March 2025, then strengthened to roughly 19 per dollar by August 2026. The Bank of Zambia cut its policy rate to 13.25 percent in May 2026, the most recent decision at the time of writing, with inflation inside the 6 to 8 percent target band.

Zambia’s debt restructuring is substantially complete: the IMF concluded the final review of its ECF programme in January 2026. Quote in USD anyway; the appreciation is recent and buyers remember 2023.

Letters of credit are the standard instrument on transformer, turbine and BESS tickets. Zanaco, Stanbic Zambia, Absa Zambia and FNB Zambia handle most issuance, and foreign-issued LCs are commonly confirmed offshore. Export credit cover tracks origin: Sinosure sits behind Chinese EPC-supplied packages, while Euler Hermes, SACE, UKEF and US EXIM cover European and American equipment. IPP packages settle on the financier’s terms, which usually means cleaner payment than a budget-funded parastatal lot. Milestones run the regional pattern: advance against guarantee, bulk against shipping documents, retention after commissioning.

Customs runs through the Zambia Revenue Authority on ASYCUDA World, with duty bands up to 25 percent and VAT at 16 percent; projects inside a Multi-Facility Economic Zone or holding ZDA investment incentives can have duty and VAT waived on qualifying equipment, so confirm the buyer’s incentive status per HS code before quoting DDP.

Zambia is landlocked, so cargo arrives via Dar es Salaam on the TAZARA corridor, now under a CCECC-led revitalisation concession, via Durban on the North-South road corridor, or through Walvis Bay. Copperbelt freight reaches the Lobito railhead by road feeder today; the Zambian rail leg is not built.

Which EPC contractors hold the work

Powerchina built both Chisamba phases. Sinohydro built Kafue Gorge Lower. Chinese EPC firms, typically paired with Sinosure-backed financing, therefore control large bills of materials into which component suppliers can be specified. On the IPP side, Globeleq is procuring the Leopards Hill package, CEC Renewables self-develops its solar plants, and Turkish EPC contractor YEO is delivering a solar-plus-storage project with developer GEI. A supplier who wins a place on two or three of these vendor lists sees more volume than one chasing individual public tenders.

Where the tenders publish

Public-side procurement is consolidated. ZPPA’s e-Government Procurement system is mandatory for public entities, ZESCO included, with supplier registration at eprocure.zppa.org.zm; ZPPA Circular No. 37 of 2025 governs the narrow cases allowed outside the platform. Every document is in English.

The commercial half never touches ZPPA. CEC, GreenCo, Globeleq, Maamba and the mining houses run their own vendor registration and RFQ processes, and ERB licensing announcements plus Ministry of Energy project lists are the earliest public signal of what they will buy next. Working both halves at once is the difference between seeing some of the market and seeing most of it.

Trade fairs, field reps and the distributor problem

The conventional channels for reaching Zambian power buyers are narrowing. ZIMEC, the Zambia International Mining and Energy Conference in Lusaka, is the sector’s own event and worth a visit, but a booth there rarely converts into a vendor-list position on its own. The Zambia International Trade Fair in Ndola skews general-purpose, and the Copperbelt Mining Trade Expo in Kitwe reaches mine engineers more than utility ones. Many Zambian buyers do their serious equipment scouting at Electra Mining Africa in Johannesburg instead, consistent with South Africa’s roughly 29 percent share of Zambia’s imports.

A resident sales engineer covering Lusaka and the Copperbelt costs more every year and physically cannot track ZESCO lots, CEC vendor lists, IPP EPC chains and mine captive procurement at once.

The electrical trading houses of Lusaka and Kitwe hold the aftermarket for cables, breakers and small transformers, stocked from South African and Chinese lines with established credit; their business is moving what they already stock, on terms they already have. Meanwhile the EPC-attached supply chain locks in whatever the contractor’s home catalogue carries. Utility and IPP engineers increasingly want direct OEM contact for specification and warranty, which rewards manufacturers who reach them before the tender publishes.

FAQ

Is load shedding still a problem for Zambian energy buyers in 2026?

Nationwide load shedding ended as generation recovered; ZESCO stated in June 2026 that it does not expect a return to nationwide load management. The system remains hydrology-dependent, so industrial buyers continue to hold standby generation and specify hybrid plants rather than relying on grid supply alone.

Can a foreign OEM bid ZESCO tenders without a Zambian entity?

Yes. Registration on the ZPPA e-GP platform is open to foreign firms and tender documents are in English. Evaluations favour bids with a credible in-country arrangement for after-sales and spares, so most winning foreign OEMs pair a direct bid with a named local service partner rather than selling fully remote.

What grid standards does Zambian equipment need to meet?

Zambia runs a 50 Hz, IEC-based system with a 330 kV and 220 kV transmission backbone and 33 kV and 11 kV distribution. Tender specifications reference IEC type-test certification, and imports clear through ZRA on ASYCUDA World, so factor type-test documentation and conformity clearance into delivery schedules.

Do power projects get duty relief on imported equipment?

Often, but never assume it. Default ZRA duty bands reach 25 percent with VAT at 16 percent, while MFEZ-qualifying projects and ZDA-negotiated incentive packages can waive duty and VAT on capital equipment. Confirm the buyer’s incentive status for the specific HS codes before committing to a DDP price.

Who is buying battery storage in Zambia right now?

Three buyer types: IPP developers such as Globeleq, whose Leopards Hill project pairs 250 MWp of solar with a 150 MW/600 MWh battery; ZESCO, with USTDA-funded grid-scale storage studies; and mining houses adding batteries to captive solar hybrids. Each procures through a different route, none of them identical to a public tender.

Where to go next

A sector guide gets you oriented; quoting happens at equipment level. If you supply a specific line, go straight to the matching guide: diesel gensets, hydroelectric turbines, solar PV EPC, transformers, or battery energy storage. For the cross-sector view of Zambian buying, start with the Zambia industrial procurement guide.

If you would rather talk through how to get in front of ZESCO, CEC and the IPP chain systematically, reach out or write to burak@papaverai.com. We run outbound programmes for equipment manufacturers at USD 150 to 300 per qualified lead, and the numbers improve the longer a programme runs.