• Zimbabwe spent US$881.7 million on electricity imports between January 2021 and March 2026, averaging about US$13.4 million per month
• Annual import costs remained high across the period, peaking at US$207.8 million in 2022 and US$207.7 million in 2024, while Q1 2026 imports reached US$35.1 million
• The import bill reflects a persistent domestic generation deficit linked to Kariba water constraints, Hwange availability challenges and ZESA/ZETDC liquidity pressure

Harare- Zimbabwe has spent USD 881.7 million importing electricity between January 2021 and March 2026, according to a monthly import series derived from ZimStat External Trade Statistics.

The cumulative figure spans sixty-three months during which the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority and its successor entities consistently failed to generate sufficient domestic power from Kariba South, Hwange Thermal Power Station, and the country's embedded generation base to meet national demand, sourcing the deficit instead from Mozambique's HCB (Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa), South Africa's Eskom, and Zambia's ZESCO at costs that have run at an average of approximately USD 13.4 million per month across the full five-year period.

The annual totals computed from the monthly series tell the story of a power system that has not resolved its structural generation deficit across any single year in the dataset. Zimbabwe spent USD 152.1 million on electricity imports in 2021, USD 207.8 million in 2022, USD 162.1 million in 2023, USD 207.7 million in 2024, and USD 117 million in 2025.

The first three months of 2026 have produced USD 35.1 million, a quarterly pace that annualises to approximately USD 140 million. Not one of these years reflected a country that has resolved its generation shortfall, but a country managing the cost of its dependency at different price points and import volumes as regional hydroelectric conditions, domestic generation performance, and foreign currency availability fluctuate.

The highest single monthly electricity import figure was October 2022 at USD 37.4 million, occurring within a 2022 full-year total of USD 207.8 million, the joint-highest annual figure alongside 2024's USD 207.7 million. The 2022 spike has a specific and well-documented cause, Kariba Dam's water levels fell to critically low levels in 2022, forcing ZESA to reduce Kariba South Power Station's output substantially from its installed capacity of 1,050 megawatts.

The October 2022 single-month record of USD 37.4 million reflects the intersection of Kariba's water level crisis, regional electricity market pricing that escalated as drought conditions across the Zambezi basin reduced hydropower availability simultaneously at Cahora Bassa and Kariba, and the ZESA management decision to prioritise supply to priority industrial customers and urban centres over load-shedding intensity.

The combination of constrained supply and elevated import pricing was the mechanism that produces individual month spikes, not operational failures on the import procurement side, but the structural consequence of an undiversified generation base that concentrates over 50% of domestic capacity in a single hydroelectric source whose output is directly correlated with Zambezi catchment rainfall, which is itself subject to the same El Niño and La Niña cycles that produce Zimbabwe's agricultural droughts (now Hwange carries the load).

The most significant observation in the electricity imports was the 2025 decline to USD 117 million,  the lowest full-year figure during the five-years  by a considerable margin.

Zimbabwe's domestic generation capacity did not materially improve in 2025 relative to 2024. ZETDC's transmission losses remained elevated. Hwange Thermal Power Station, whose Units 7 and 8 expansions added approximately 600 MW of nameplate capacity, has operated at availability rates below design specification due to coal supply constraints, boiler maintenance issues, and the working capital pressures that have characterised ZESA Holdings' and ZETDC's operational environment throughout the period.

Kariba South's output in 2025 improved from its 2022 crisis levels as Zambezi basin rainfall partially recovered, providing some domestic generation relief , but not at a magnitude consistent with a USD 90 million reduction in annual import expenditure against 2024.

The more likely explanation is import compression driven by foreign currency constraint. ZESA's and ZETDC's ability to pay for imported electricity is directly dependent on foreign currency availability , either from the RBZ's foreign currency allocation system or from ZETDC's own revenue collection in USD from industrial and commercial customers.

IPEC's pensions report for FY2024 disclosed that ZETDC owed ZWG 266 million in pension contribution arrears, of which ZWG 137 million had been outstanding for more than 180 days, a direct indicator of cash flow pressure at the utility. An entity that cannot remit pension contributions deducted from its workers' salaries is also an entity managing its USD import commitments within tight liquidity constraints.

Import compression, buying less electricity from HCB, Eskom, and ZESCO because the foreign currency to pay for it is not available, has a direct cost that does not appear in the import expenditure data. That cost is load-shedding, the hours per day that industrial, commercial, and residential customers receive no power, producing productivity losses, equipment damage from voltage instability at grid restoration, and the diesel generator fuel cost that businesses and households substitute for grid power at a price considerably above the electricity tariff.

A lower electricity import bill in 2025 was not unambiguously good news if it was achieved by leaving demand unmet rather than by generating more power domestically.

Zimbabwe's electricity import expenditure of USD 846.8 million across sixty-three months covers power sourced primarily from three regional suppliers. Cahora Bassa in Mozambique,  whose 2,075 MW installed capacity on the Zambezi River feeds directly into ZESA's grid via the high-voltage DC transmission line to Apollo substation near Harare, is the dominant import source, typically supplying 200 to 400 MW on a contract basis.

Eskom in South Africa supplies additional import capacity, subject to South Africa's own generation constraints and the rotating load-shedding that characterised Eskom's 2022-2024 period of peak operational stress. ZESCO in Zambia supplies more limited volumes through the Hwange interconnection.

A country sourcing one-fifth of its electricity from imports at an average cost of USD 160 million per year is not experiencing an energy crisis at its margins, but managing a structural generation deficit that has been present across every year of this administration and every administration before it.

The electricity crisis coincides with Mutapa Investment Fund's announcement of a USD 500 million energy investment pipeline,  the largest single item in its 2026 capital mobilisation agenda alongside the USD 400 million commodity offtake deal and USD 75 million bank syndication.

Mutapa's energy investment target, if deployed into Zimbabwe's generation base through solar, thermal rehabilitation, or independent power producer offtake agreements, could materially reduce the electricity import bill within three to five years of commissioning. A 300 MW solar facility operating at Zimbabwe's solar irradiation levels generates approximately 600 million kilowatt-hours per year, equivalent to approximately USD 60 million in annual import substitution at current electricity import pricing.

The structural argument for import substitution in electricity is more straightforward than in maize, Zimbabwe cannot manufacture solar radiation, but it receives more of it per square metre than almost any country in Southern Africa, and photovoltaic technology costs have fallen approximately 90% since 2010.

The constraint is not resource endowment, but capital mobilisation, and the Mutapa USD 500 million energy pipeline is the most concrete public statement that the capital mobilisation imperative has been recognised at the level of the country's sovereign investment fund.

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