Zambia Scaling Solar

Sub-Saharan Africa has excellent solar resources and a sizeable need for additional power generation. However, despite falling costs globally, there are few solar power plants outside of South Africa , and their costs are significantly higher than those of other parts of the world. To help change this, the World Bank Group (WBG) designed the Scaling Solar program. 

Scaling Solar is designed for rapid implementation and offers a “one-stop-shop” package of advisory services, contracts, financing, guarantees, and political risk insurance from the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) under a single engagement aimed at creating viable markets for grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants. This enables governments and utilities to procure solar power transparently and at the lowest possible cost, helping reduce financing costs and leading to more certainty and better consumer tariffs. 

The Zambian program attracted top-tier global developers into the first competitive auction , resulting in the lowest tariff in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Scaling Solar program is now being replicated in several other countries.