How households adapted their energy use during the Zambian energy crisis

The recent Zambian energy crisis began in June 2015 when ZESCO, a parastatal electric utility, implemented country-wide load-shedding (an intentional disruption of power) nominally lasting 8 h per day. The cause of the energy crisis is a confluence of several factors: infrastructure under-investment, over-reliance on and mismanagement of hydro-power generation resources, rapidly growing demand, and reduced reservoir inflow from lower than average rainfall. This research investigates how Zambian households adapted their energy consumption to cope with load-shedding. The research is based on the responses from 261 oral surveys conducted in four provinces. The results show that fuel-switching, load-shifting and conservation strategies were widely employed, but generally differed across socio-economic dimensions. These strategies in turn affected the net economic expenditure on energy and total energy consumed by each household. An estimation of the economic impact showed an increase in fuel-related expenditure and energy consumption of nearly 50%, largely attributed to fuel-switching to charcoal and generator sets.