Zambia’s electricity minister, Peter Kapala, told parliament on 5 November that the power interconnector to Tanzania will be commissioned in the second quarter of 2029, a year later than the 2028 completion date given in 2025. Zambia is building about 613 km of high-voltage line from Pensulo through Mpika and Kasama to Nakonde, funded by $292 million in grants from the World Bank, the European Union and the United Kingdom; China’s Sinotech Consortium won the first two sections. The 2,300 km Zambia–Tanzania–Kenya line, agreed in 2014, would join the Southern African and Eastern Africa power pools. The delay leaves Zambia, whose hydropower-dependent grid forced rationing in the 2023–24 drought, without up to 500 megawatts of trading capacity until 2029.
Sources
- Reuters via Club of Mozambique: https://clubofmozambique.com/news/zambia-expects-power-line-to-tanzania-to-be-operational-in-2029/
- Zambia Monitor: https://www.zambiamonitor.com/zambia-tanzania-power-interconnector-to-be-commissioned-by-2029-parliament-told/
- Africa Briefing: https://africabriefing.com/zambia-power-link-delayed-until-2029/
- Reuters via The Citizen (2025 target of 2028): https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/africa/zambia-to-resume-work-on-power-line-link-to-tanzania-5000006