Distributed Power Africa (DPA) has entered the Zambia market and plans to roll out hybrid solar solutions.

Distributed Power Africa (DPA), a subsidiary of Econet Group of companies, has entered the Zambia market and plans to roll out hybrid solar solutions a lease financing basis.

As part of the lease agreement, DPA said it takes full responsibility for engineering, procurement, installation, monitoring, maintenance and insurance.

The company’s Africa CEO Norman Moyo said there is an increase in interest in affordable, reliable energy resources across the continent.

“And due to the associated financial savings and environmental dividends, the replacement of generators with solar technology is a growing trend. We have received tremendous interest from commercial and industrial players in Zambia including banks, beverage manufacturing and malls and we remain focused on providing solar power with Lithium Ion battery technology to power up businesses efficiently,” said Moyo.

Zambia continues to struggle with load-shedding, at times of up to ten hours a day.

The Southern African country’s energy mix comprises mainly of hydro-power and has an electricity deficit of 750 megawatts due to low water levels at the generation plants as a result of insufficient rainfall, according to Energy minister Mathew Nkhuwa.

The Minister said the country is increasingly looking to solar energy to address energy problems.

Nkhuwa added: “My ministry is engaging major suppliers of solar equipment to ensure that they are made affordable because there is no tax incurred as we have zero-rated the importation of the said equipment.”

The DPA said it offers solar systems from 5KW to 5MW capacities, primarily to commercial and industrial customers.

In 2019, the company accelerated deployment of green energy into Sub-Saharan Africa with projects in South Africa and Kenya through which it provided solar power to Liquid Telecom’s datacentre and Africa Data Centres respectively.