Energy for Sustainable Development 44 (2018) 125–138 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy for Sustainable Development How households adapted their energy use during the Zambian energy crisis Robert Ngoma a, * , Abel Tambatamba a , Benta Oyoo a , David Mulongoti a , Buchizya Kumwenda a , Henry Louie b a Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambia b Seattle University, Seattle, United States ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 22 January 2018 Received in revised form 22 March 2018 Accepted 22 March 2018 Available online 18 April 2018 Keywords: Blackouts Energy crisis Load-shedding Load-shifting Fuel-stacking Fuel-switching Conservation Zambia ABSTRACT The recent Zambian energy crisis began in June 2015 when ZESCO, a parastatal electric utility, implemented country-wide load-shedding (an intentional disruption of power) nominally lasting 8 h per day. The cause of the energy crisis is a confluence of several factors: infrastructure under-investment, over-reliance on and mismanagement of hydro-power generation resources, rapidly growing demand, and reduced reservoir inflow from lower than average rainfall. This research investigates how Zambian households adapted their energy consumption to cope with load-shedding. The research is based on the responses from 261 oral surveys conducted in four provinces. The results show that fuel-switching, load-shifting and conservation strategies were widely employed, but generally differed across socio-economic dimensions. These strategies in turn affected the net economic expenditure on energy and total energy consumed by each household. An estimation of the economic impact showed an increase in fuel-related expenditure and energy consumption of nearly 50%, largely attributed to fuel-switching to charcoal and generator sets. © 2018 International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction Access to electricity is frequently part of the national discourse in Zambia, where just 22% of the population are connected to the electrical grid (International Energy Agency and the World Bank, 2015). Zambia, like many others of the so-called “least developed countries”, has struggled to maintain adequate generation capacity to meet its indigenous demand (Business Monitor International Ltd., 2015; Energy Regulation Board of Zambia, 2016). In June 2015, a load-shedding program was implemented in an attempt to ration the dwindling water in the Lake Kariba reservoir, the site of Zambia’s highest-capacity power station (Energy Regulation Board of Zambia, 2016; Engineering Institute of Zambia, 2015). Load-shedding is the deliberate interruption of electricity supply to all or a subset of consumers according to a pre-defined duration and schedule. Load-shedding programs are often implemented as a precaution to prevent a complete system-wide blackout or to ration * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: robert.ngoma@cbu.ac.zm (R. Ngoma), abel.tambatamba@cbu.ac.zm (A. Tambatamba), benta.oyoo@cbu.ac.zm (B. Oyoo), david.mulongoti@cbu.ac.zm (D. Mulongoti), buchizya.kumwenda@cbu.ac.zm (B. Kumwenda), hlouie@ieee.org (H. Louie). limited energy (International Energy Agency, 2005). Typically, load- shedding is implemented on a rotating and non-overlapping basis, so that at any given time, a portion of the consumers will have access to grid electricity, and others will not. In Zambia, the disconnection is manual and performed at the substation level, so that at any given time, only a subset of the distribution feeders are energized. Numerous developing and developed countries have experienced load-shedding (Heffner, Mauer, Sakar, & Wang, 2010; International Energy Agency, 2005). Presently, at least 270 million people live in countries with widespread, chronic and severe load-shedding. In 2017, this list includes regions of India (Central Energy Authority, 2016), Ghana (Asmah, Myrzik, & Ahunu, 2015), Malawi (Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi, Ltd., 2017), Nepal (Nepal Electric- ity Authority, 2016), Pakistan (Kessides, 2013), Venezuela (Miroff, 2016), Zambia (Energy Regulation Board of Zambia, 2016; Engineer- ing Institute of Zambia, 2015) and others. When load-shedding occurs in developing countries, it is often at least partially due to under-investment in electricity infrastruc- ture, including power plants. Rapid population growth and growing economic activities exacerbate the problem (Heffner et al., 2010). In Zambia, a growing population base and expanding economy, primarily driven by the energy-hungry copper mines (Business Monitor International Ltd., 2015), have increased electricity demand by 3.3% per year. Additionally, failure to diversify the generation https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2018.03.007 0973-0826/© 2018 International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.