IN SHORT: Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority Group CEO Cletus Nyachowe told Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee on May 11 that load shedding will end permanently by December 2026. Zimbabwe has already gone 138 consecutive days without load shedding. Projects currently under construction will add 635MW by December; a further 730MW is approaching financial close, bringing the total new capacity addition to 1,365MW this year. Power imports will end by 2027. A $210 million Afreximbank facility activated for regional power trading has been central to the stability achieved so far.
Zimbabwe’s electricity utility has told parliament that load shedding will end by December 2026, backed by 1,365MW of new capacity under construction or at financial close, 138 consecutive days without cuts already achieved, and a $210 million Afreximbank facility that has enabled power trading across the Southern African Power Pool to fill gaps while domestic generation scales up.
ZESA Group CEO Cletus Nyachowe gave oral evidence to the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee in Hwange on May 10, where the committee is conducting fact-finding visits to Mutapa Investment Fund entities that have not been delivering dividends. Nyachowe’s testimony came as the committee assessed ZESA’s performance and trajectory.
- The 138 consecutive days without load shedding that Zimbabwe has achieved by May 2026 represents the longest uninterrupted power supply period in the country’s recent history. Nyachowe was explicit that this is “a baseline, and not a ceiling” — the performance demonstrates what is possible but does not yet represent the structural solution that only new generation capacity can provide. The current stability is partly a function of improved power trading on the Southern African Power Pool, enabled by the Afreximbank facility, which allows Zimbabwe to buy and sell electricity regionally in real time.
- The $210 million Afreximbank facility has been the immediate game-changer. Enerst Dendere, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of the Mutapa Investment Fund, told the committee: “We facilitated the $210m Afreximbank Facility for ZESA, for which a portion has been dedicated for power trading on the Southern African Power Pool. These initiatives had enabled us to have 138 days without load shedding to date.” The facility provides the foreign currency needed to buy electricity from regional partners when Zimbabwe’s domestic generation is insufficient, removing the forex constraint that previously forced arbitrary cuts.
- The capacity addition programme is the medium-term solution. Projects under construction will add 635MW by December 2026. A further 730MW is approaching financial close, with construction expected to follow. The combined 1,365MW total represents a material addition to Zimbabwe’s current installed capacity. Nyachowe specified that ending power imports is the target by end-2027, implying that by then domestic generation will not only cover demand but provide enough margin to stop purchasing from neighbouring utilities.
- Zimbabwe’s electrification gap remains substantial. More than 500,000 new houses built in urban areas remain unelectrified. Nyachowe told the committee that ZESA is working with the Rural Electrification Agency and other partners to address this. The 2030 target is total national electrification, an ambitious goal for a country that currently connects approximately 320,000 households per year to the grid under an accelerated programme.
- The Zimbabwe story sits alongside South Africa’s at a continental level. South Africa has achieved 320 consecutive days without load shedding, driven by its Generation Recovery Plan and private sector renewable energy additions. Zimbabwe’s 138 days reflects a different pathway, more dependent on regional power trading than on new domestic generation, but producing the same consumer and business benefit: reliable electricity for industry, commerce, agriculture and households. Both trajectories suggest that the Southern African region’s chronic power deficit is genuinely reversing.
- The Batoka Gorge hydropower project, a bi-national Zimbabwe-Zambia initiative on the Zambezi River, remains the long-term energy security cornerstone. Once operational, it would provide massive base-load power for both countries. Financial closure for Batoka has been elusive for years; Nyachowe’s testimony does not suggest it is imminent, but the project remains on Zimbabwe’s strategic energy roadmap.
Nyachowe: “We are looking at ending load shedding by the end of this year. We are looking at about one million families that we need to electrify by penetrating. By 2030, we should achieve total electrification of the country. ZESA will be looking at ending power imports by end of 2027.”
The Bigger Picture: Zimbabwe’s ZESA CEO making a specific, dated, quantified promise to parliament about ending load shedding is either a meaningful commitment or it is not. The track record of African power utilities making similar promises and missing them is long. But the specific mechanism this time is different: the Afreximbank-funded power trading facility, which is producing tangible results today, not theoretical future capacity. The 138 days without cuts has happened. That is not a promise. It is a fact. The question is whether the 635MW under construction arrives on schedule and whether the financial close on the additional 730MW happens as indicated. If both materialise, Zimbabwe ends 2026 as the second major Southern African economy to have effectively resolved its load shedding crisis within a 12-month window. That would be one of the most significant energy policy outcomes on the continent in a generation.
Source: AllAfrica via New Zimbabwe / Zimbabwe Situation, May 11, 2026
