Previous: Agriculture ||Table Of Contents|| Next: Tourism

ENERGY

Energy resources found within the Zambezi Basin include both renewable ones such as biomass and hydropower, non-renewable ones such as coal and petroleum as well as new energy technologies like solar and wind power. About 74 percent of the total energy requirements of the eight Zambezi River Basin countries come from biomass fuels such as wood, charcoal, and plant residues, and is mostly used for domestic purposes and in agriculture for curing tobacco. Biomass fuels are also used for brick manufacturing; lime production; fish smoking; and coffee- and tea-drying.

The reasons for the excessive use of fuelwood in the basin are several:

• Since forests are a renewable resource, they can be exploited in perpetuity, if properly maintained. Furthermore, for now woodfuel is the most reliable and affordable source of energy for many households.
• Woodfuel is an indigenous source of energy. Its use does not require foreign exchange to acquire it.
• In most areas, fuelwood is not purchased but just collected by rural households. This "free resource" enables poor households to channel most of their incomes to other needs.
• In some countries, particularly those in which charcoal use is prevalent, trading in charcoal is a major source of income for some households. In Zambia, for example, the charcoal industry generates about US$30 million annually. About 60,000 people directly depend on it for the bulk of their income.

No forestry inventory has been done in Angola since colonialism ended in 1975. Botswana has abundant energy resources in the form of wood. Although in some areas wood is harvested at unsustainable rates for the country as a whole, it is in surplus. Only 1.8 million tonnes of the annual biomass increment of 50 million tonnes is harvested. In Malawi, 90 percent of total energy being supplied is biomass mostly in the form of wood. Biomass and biogas together make up about 92 percent of all energy consumed.

About 80 percent of Mozambique's population lives in rural areas and depends on wood for cooking as well as heating water for domestic use, room heating and drying of food stuffs. More than 90 percent of the families exclusively use fuelwood for cooking, and less than 10 percent use charcoal.

In Namibia, there is indiscriminate clearing of trees in forest reserves for fuelwood and other purposes without "any allowance for regeneration" and this is particularly so in the northern region. The predominant desert conditions also aggravate this problem. Rural households use up to 90 percent of firewood for their energy needs, resulting in massive deforestation.

About 25 million cu m of woodfuel is consumed in Tanzania with 97 percent of this being used as firewood in rural areas. Like in other basin countries, consumption levels exceed regeneration and plantation rates. Charcoal is also widely used, especially in urban areas where 70 percent of the urban population use charcoal for energy. Woodlands and forests are estimated to cover about 100,000 sq km in Zambia, which is about two-thirds or 66 percent of the country's total land area.

Wood is also the single largest source of energy in Zimbabwe, supplying about 57 percent of total energy consumed in the country. More than six million tonnes of wood are consumed annually, supplying mainly rural communities and the urban poor.

Electricity

Electricity is either hydro or thermal based, making it renewable or non-renewable respectively. The estimated hydropower potential of the Zambezi River is 20,000 megawatts (MW) of which 4,684 MW has been developed. Potential hydropower plants with a total installation capacity of more than 13,000 MW have also been identified in the basin. The Zambezi Basin is a source of hydroelectricity in the southern African region. In southern Africa, it is only surpassed by the Congo River, which potentially holds Africa's largest hydro resource. The Zambezi River and its tributaries have been exploited for their hydro potential by most of the basin countries such as Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. A total of 42 potential hydro sites in the Zambezi Basin (12,892 MW) occur in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Other countries of the SADC region, which are outside the basin, benefit from direct import of electricity from the river's power stations and through the SADC Power Pool (SAPP). An example is South Africa, which imports electricity from the Cahora Bassa Dam in Mozambique.

There are no existing hydropower plants found in the Angolan, Botswana or Namibian part of the Zambezi Basin. Of the 4,620 MW available, about five percent is in Malawi, 45 percent in Mozambique, 36 percent in Zambia and 14 percent in Zimbabwe. The Cahora Bassa hydropower plant, with a capacity of 2,075 MW, is the largest in SADC, followed by the Inga in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 1,771 MW.

About 40 possible new hydropower plants with a total installation capacity of more than 13,000 MW have been identified in the basin. About 85 percent of this capacity is on the Zambezi River itself, while the remainder is on its tributaries. Close to half of the mapped potential is in Mozambique, about 25 percent in Zambia and about 20 percent in Zimbabwe. A little more than five percent of the potential is divided between Angola, Malawi and Tanzania. Coal and coal-bed methane are used to generate thermal power in the region, which boasts abundant coal reserves.

The major thermal plants within the basin are located in Zimbabwe. The Hwange Power Station has a capacity of 920 MW. Three other thermal power stations are in Harare (135 MW), Bulawayo (120 MW) and Munyati (120 MW). A power station at Sengwa coalmine, with a capacity of 1,200 MW, has reached advanced stage of development, involving mainly independent power producers. Several diesel power plants, with a total capacity of about 4 MW, are scattered around the country. Thermal plants in Malawi include Chichiri gas turbine (15 MW) in Blantyre, diesel plants in Lilongwe (4.3 MW) and Mzuzu (1.8 MW) which all feed into the national grid. The diesel and gas turbine plants serve as standby power supply sources. Chitipa is supplied by off-grid diesel plant of 300 kW capacity.

Coal reserves within the basin are utilised mostly for thermal power generation, domestic uses such as cooking and heating, industrial uses such as smelting and making chemicals, and commercial uses such as tobacco curing and railway traction. The total coal production in the SADC region increased from 212.24 million tonnes in 1996 to 223.98 million tonnes in 1997.

Solar energy provides clean energy and can improve the standard of living of those communities that otherwise have no access to grid electricity. The cost of solar technologies has been hampering faster dissemination of the technology, but over the last few decades, the prices have been falling. International efforts to make solar products affordable have also assisted in bringing programmes to poor communities. An example is the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Solar project, which ran in Zimbabwe from 1992-97, installing over 10,000 systems.

Some impacts of the energy sector
on the environment

Production and use of all forms of energy have associated environmental consequences. Fuelwood burning, for example, contributes to deforestation, one of the factors that lead to soil erosion, siltation and ultimately land degradation. Further, destroying forests reduces the region's capacity to curb climate change since forests act as sinks of carbon dioxide.

Just as much as there is a need for electricity from hydropower plants, constructing dams may have widespread negative social and environmental impacts. These include the displacement of people and animals; burial of heritage sites, plants and animals. Other impacts include the depletion of wetland habitats and aquatic life; increase in waterborne diseases; sedimentation, siltation and siltation-induced flooding. For example, Lake Kariba alone displaced over 57,000 people while the Cahora Bassa in Mozambique forced the relocation of about 25,000 people.

The mining, processing, storage and usage of fossil fuels have detrimental effects on the environment. Thermal power generation, for example, has many negative environmental impacts. These range from coal discards at the collieries to gas emissions from coal and diesel combustion, and groundwater pollution. It also affects air quality, surface and landuse.

The energy sector is responsible for about a third of the greenhouse gas emissions in Africa as a whole. Estimated emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide for the Zambezi Basin states in 1995 was about 23.14 million tonnes (information was not available for Namibia). This figure may appear small compared to South Africa, which emitted 305.81 million tonnes in 1995 and the USA, which emitted 5,468.56 million tonnes, but the cumulative emissions at the global level will impact all regions, including the basin states.

While the magnitude of air pollution hazards to the regional environment is largely unknown, it is, however, believed that vegetation, soils and water are being impacted from direct effects of gaseous pollutants and acid rain, which is formed when sulphur dioxide combines with rainwater. Data collection on emissions and impacts is not well developed across the region but 89 percent of electricity generation in SADC is from coal, contributing thousands of tonnes of sulphates to the atmosphere annually, which in turn might lead to acid rain in the basin countries.

Another problem related to the use of non-renewable energy sources is exhaust fumes from vehicles driven by fossil fuels. Economic development has impacted on lifestyle, with many people, particularly in urban areas aspiring to own a vehicle. Zimbabwe, for example, has more than 500,000 vehicles on its roads. The growing use of motor vehicles is increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as methane, ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide and most important, carbon dioxide.

Energy policies

In recognition of the importance of energy as a basic requirement for socio-economic development, SADC policymakers have worked out various proposals and plans on how to develop and utilise the existing vast energy resources to facilitate the process of industrialisation, achieve economic development and raise the living standards of the people. However, the various regional and sub-regional institutions have not yet been successful in implementing coordinated and coherent energy policies and strategies.

An example is the 1996 SADC Energy Protocol, which is a regional initiative that promotes cooperation in the whole energy sector. Effective implementation of the protocol is still lacking. However, the most outstanding and pragmatic cooperation effort in the southern African region is the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). All SADC countries have agreed to cooperate in electricity projects and trade. Electricity trade in the region, however, has been ongoing since the 1950s when interconnections were made between countries such as Zambia, Zimbabwe and the DRC.

Conservation is arguably the most effective energy resource in the region today. There are clear indications that substantial opportunities exist to conserve energy through better housekeeping and more efficient equipment in all sectors. By avoiding the wasteful energy practices of previously industrialised countries, the Zambezi Basin countries could reap both economic and environmental benefits. This will, however, require carefully designed and comprehensive programmes to promote cost-effective conservation and efficiency.

Top