Zambia's prolonged power blackouts negatively impacting telcos

Rolling power blackouts across Zambia are putting pressure on the country's mobile networks, costing operators money, and impacting services for mobile customers.

The Global System for Mobile Association of Zambia (GSMAZ) has complained that these prolonged blackouts have negatively impacted the telecommunications sector. MTN Zambia, Airtel Zambia and Zamtel, which make up the GSMAZ, released a joint statement saying that power outages lasting more than four hours compromised the quality of services provided to customers.

"The Telecommunications sector is one of Zambia's key economic enablers for sustained business growth and social development," the GSMAZ explained.

The cause of prolonged power cuts

In January 2023, severe climate change and unpredictable weather events caused the world's largest man-made lake by volume, Lake Kariba, to lose more than 98% of its water. Lake Kariba previously generated 1,080 megawatts of electricity output for Zambia and 1,050 megawatts for Zimbabwe.

According to the website LifeGate Daily, the drop led Zambia's state-owned power utility ZESCO – which supplies energy to over 80% of the country – to increase the length of blackouts from six hours to 12 hours at the time.

"Zambia is going through the worst climate change effects ever experienced in the last 60 years of its independence and everyone has been impacted in one way or another at both individual levels as well as institution and sector level," the GSMAZ continued.

The group added that its more than 3,500 combined tower sites are connected to Zambia's national grid.

"The power backup at the telecom sites is generally designed to last up to a maximum of four hours, however, owing to the current unprecedented 13 to 14 hours of daily load shedding, there is a huge cost variance not only for the fuel and generator maintenance but also for the associated fuel delivery logistics for the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)," the GSMAZ explained.

"Though backup power is available at these sites through generators, instances when there is electricity downtime, and extended load shedding hours, our provision of quality of service is compromised as the generators now require constant refueling and more frequent servicing cycles," the statement added.

The GSMAZ said power outages lasting more than four hours compromised the quality of telecom services provided to customers. (Source: Image by evening_tao on Freepik

GSMAZ said its members are working closely with tower providers, regulators and other stakeholders to find sustainable solutions to the crisis. Moreover, it added that among the measures considered in the medium to long term are solar-based backup solutions.

African telcos battle blackouts

The energy crisis in Africa has forced telcos to come up with solutions to protect infrastructure and provide customers with services.

In South Africa for instance, telcos have for years, been battling blackouts that are part of deliberate "load shedding" by state-owned power utility Eskom, which it began implementing back in 2007.

To help mitigate ongoing power blackouts in South Africa, in March 2023, MTN SA invested US$84.3 million toward getting its basestations completely off grid.

Furthermore, in August 2023, Vodacom SA and Eskom signed a "virtual wheeling agreement"" aimed to help accelerate efforts to solve the country's energy crisis. "Wheeling" is a process of moving privately generated power to customers across national government-owned power grids and is gaining traction in South Africa as a way to bridge energy shortfalls.

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Vodacom South Africa has spent more than US$214 million since 2020 on backup power solutions. The telco said that the wheeling agreement played a significant role in moving it closer to its goal of sourcing 100% of its electricity demand from renewable energy sources by 2025.

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*Top image source: Mario Caruso on Unsplash.