- ZERA plans to audit household-level solar power generation to quantify electricity produced outside the national grid
- Official electrification and demand statistics are misleading, as millions of off-grid households are self-generating power, distorting planning, peak demand figures, and revenue models for ZESA
- In well-regulated countries like Germany, Australia, and the US, household solar is automatically measured via registration and smart meters
Harare - The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) has moved to confront a long-ignored reality in Zimbabwe’s energy sector by announcing plans to audit household-level power generation, particularly rooftop solar installations.
While framed as a technical data-gathering exercise, the initiative is an implicit admission that a significant share of the country’s electricity system now operates outside the formal grid and beyond the reach of conventional planning, regulation and demand forecasting, according to ZERA chief executive Edington Mazambani in an interview with The Sunday Mail Business.
In operational terms, the proposed audit points to nationwide fieldwork. Zimbabwe does not maintain a registry of installed household solar systems, nor does it have smart-meter infrastructure capable of capturing private electricity generation.
Import statistics provide little guidance, as a substantial portion of solar equipment enters the country through informal channels and is installed without standard reporting.
As a result, the only credible method of quantifying household electricity generation is through on-the-ground surveys, sampling and physical verification across both urban and rural areas.
Globally, this approach places Zimbabwe among countries where rooftop solar has expanded faster than regulation.
In mature electricity markets such as Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom and parts of the United States, household solar generation is measured automatically.
Systems must be registered, connected through certified inverters, and linked to smart meters under net-metering or feed-in tariff regimes. Generation data is captured continuously and flows directly into national energy accounts. Regulators in those markets do not need to audit rooftop solar because it is already embedded in the formal system.
Zimbabwe’s situation is closer to that of countries such as Kenya, India and parts of South Africa, where household solar proliferated in response to unreliable grids and slow infrastructure rollout.
In these contexts, Zimbabwe’s situation is closer to that of countries such as Kenya, India and parts of South Africa, where household solar proliferated in response to unreliable grids and slow infrastructure rollout, particularly for planning and electrification statistics.
Kenya, for example, reclassified millions of households as electrified after surveys showed widespread use of solar home systems, despite the absence of grid connections. India similarly uses periodic household energy audits to model decentralised generation in rural areas. In all cases, the surveys were statistical tools rather than enforcement mechanisms.
The urgency of ZERA’s audit lies in the growing irrelevance of Zimbabwe’s official electrification statistics. The reported 62% electrification rate from the 2022 census reflects grid connectivity, not actual energy access.
Millions of households classified as off-grid are, in practice, fully powered through solar systems supporting lighting, refrigeration, communications and water pumping. These households are economically electrified but institutionally invisible, creating a widening gap between policy metrics and lived energy reality.
This invisibility has materially distorted national energy planning. Grid expansion strategies, demand forecasts and tariff models continue to assume that electricity consumption flows primarily through ZESA, even as household demand steadily migrates to private generation.
Recorded grid peak demand figures frequently indicate that the national system is unable to meet 2200MW daily requirements, justifying load-shedding and emergency imports. Yet these figures increasingly capture only the portion of demand that remains on the grid, not total electricity consumption in the economy.
In practice, large volumes of electricity are now being generated and consumed outside the grid, particularly during daylight hours.
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