Zambia

When: 2017 and 2025-2026

Purpose: Use CLEWs to support universal electricity access, agricultural growth, sustainable land use, and a more drought-resilient energy system through 2050.

What happened: Zambia’s CLEWs materials combine an earlier integrated assessment brief with a newer policy roadmap to 2050. The work links electricity access, agricultural transformation, renewable-energy expansion, irrigation, hydropower vulnerability, and sustainable land use.

Key insights:

• Agricultural electricity demand is projected to grow from about 1,200 MW in 2030 to 3,625 MW by 2050, driven by higher wheat, maize, and soybean production.
• The roadmap tests expansion to 10,000 MW of generation capacity by 2030, including solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and small hydropower.
• Non-hydropower renewables are expected to rise from about 3% to 33% by 2030, with scenario preparation material also testing variable renewable energy reaching 56% by 2050.
• Hydropower dominance creates drought exposure. The scenario material tests drought every four years and reducing hydro dependence from 88% today to 50% by 2050.
• The older integrated assessment highlights the water side of the nexus: withdrawals are roughly 73% agricultural, 19% municipal, and 8% industrial, while hydropower uses about 40% of available surface water.

Models: CLEWs, OSeMOSYS

Stakeholders: Zambian energy, agriculture, water, environment and planning institutions, UN DESA, UNDP, KTH, and Climate Compatible Growth partners.