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Zambian copper-mining firm

teams up with TotalEnergies

for 200MW solar farm

ZAMBIA KANSANSHI Mining plc, the operator of a second and third largest cities, Kitwe and Ndola,
copper-mining complex in Zambia, has part- both located in the Copperbelt province.
nered with TotalEnergies (France) to establish Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) also said in a
a 200MW solar power plant that will help the statement at the time that its mines, tailings leach
country diversify energy sources. plant and Nchanga smelter had been negatively
Anthony Mukutuma, the general manager affected by the outages.
of Kansanshi Mining, has said that the 200MW “Emergency generators have been switched
solar farm is designed to help Zambia curb its on to stabilise operations at the smelter and the
810MW power deficit and support economic Tailings Leach Plant. ... Flood gates have been
growth. activated and closed at Konkola underground
Kansanshi Mining also intends to combine mine, while we have shut boreholes under-
this project with investment in a 200MW wind ground to limit the flow of water into the mine
park in the area, he noted. Together, these pro- and avert flooding,” KCM said.
jects will increase generating capacity and mit- These events contributed to a 9% decline
igate the negative environmental impacts the in copper production in the second quarter of
country has been experiencing, he commented. 2021. And while the Zambian economy has delt
“The project will see a combined capacity a blow by the COVID-19 pandemic, mining was
generation of 400MW by putting that green the only sector of the copper-rich economy to
power into the grid. We believe the dependency decline in that quarter. This implies that Zambia
of our nation on coal will reduce,” Mukutuma was unable to capitalize fully on rising copper
said. prices, according to Yvonne Mhango, an econ-
Zambia’s power deficit was evident last year, omist at Renaissance Capital.
when many parts of the country experienced Zambia’s economy fell into a deep recession
a major power outage as a result of a problem due to the adverse impact of the COVID–19
at the Kariba North Bank hydroelectric power pandemic. The country’s real GDP contracted by
plant (HPP). 4.9% in 2020, after growing by 4.0% in 2018 and
The resulting blackouts were especially dis- 1.9% in 2019, according to the World Bank.™
ruptive in the mining regions. They hit Zambia’s

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