Tracking rural electrification in Zambia
The Rural Electrification Authority of Zambia has a mandate to provide electricity infrastructure to all rural areas using appropriate technologies.
REEEP and REA Zambia are teaming up to use Edison to monitor Zambia's rural electrification progress
Almost 70% of Zambia's population still lacks access to modern energy. The Rural Electrification Authority (REA) is the government agency with the goal to increase the electrification rate from 3% to 51% by 2030, contributing to enhanced living standards, productivity and improved quality of life for the rural Zambian population.
The Rural Electrification Authority of Zambia (REA), created by an Act of Parliament in 2003, has a mandate to provide electricity infrastructure to all rural areas using appropriate technologies. In the next few years, the REA is the focal point of a number of initiatives (capital subsidy support, solar, minigrid and hydro) that will allow energy service providers to reach thousands of new customers in rural and peri-urban areas. The REEEP Analytics team is working with the REA to use the Edison data platform to monitor these initiatives, building on the success of the Beyond the Grid Fund for Zambia (BGFZ), which has already reached over a million Zambians through its contracted clean energy services providers.
Edison provides programme managers with customised dashboards, visualisations and access to daily updated data to track a programme’s progress. Working closely with the REA, REEEP is providing Edison for further electrification projects under REA auspices. Initially, REA and REEEP have agreed a partnership around a programme to retrofit solar milling assets and attach distribution networks. REEEP will also support the REA in a scoping exercise around monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) frameworks, data availability and the administrative environment, with a view to develop a long-term plan for Edison to monitor REA's full portfolio, including a planned handover of Edison operations and system infrastructure to the REA. This work is being funded by SIDA under the ongoing “Edison 2 - Data for Development” project.