Our Story

Born in the blackout

Zubalight exists because of what happened to Zambia between 2023 and 2025. A failed rainy season became a national emergency, the dams that power the country ran dry, and for months most Zambians lived by candlelight and generator. This is the story of how the lights went out, and of the team that came together to make sure they never go out again.

40+ yrs

Driest agricultural season in over four decades

21 hrs

Daily power cuts at the peak of the crisis

2.89%

Kariba’s usable storage, December 2024

Zambians affected by the declared disaster

The Timeline

How the lights went out

October 2023 to March 2024

The rains fail

An intense El Niño settles over Southern Africa and the 2023/24 rainy season collapses. Zambia records its driest agricultural season in over four decades. Crops fail across the country, and the reservoirs that generate most of Zambia’s electricity begin to fall.

19 January 2024

Zubalight Energy is incorporated

Weeks before the crisis has an official name, four Zambian founders register Zubalight Energy Limited with PACRA, convinced of one thing: a country powered almost entirely by water needs the sun in its energy mix. The goal from day one is utility-scale solar.

29 February 2024

A national disaster is declared

President Hakainde Hichilema declares the drought a national disaster and emergency. Eighty-four districts are affected and around nine million people are impacted. The El Niño drought is now a full national crisis.

11 March 2024

The lights go out

ZESCO begins nationwide load shedding of eight hours a day as water levels at Kariba, the backbone of Zambian generation, keep falling.

May to September 2024

Deeper into the dark

Eight hours becomes twelve in May. By September it is seventeen, with barely a tenth of Kariba’s usable water left. Businesses run on diesel, cold chains break, and the cost of the crisis spreads through every sector of the economy.

December 2024

Rock bottom

Kariba’s usable storage falls to 2.89 percent and power cuts stretch to 21 hours a day at their worst. On the Zambian side of the dam, only one of six turbines can run. The lesson is brutal and clear: a grid that is over 80 percent hydro has no defence against drought.

2025 to 2026

The project takes shape

The rains return and the grid begins to recover, but the founders push on. Bupe Lumbeta joins through Lumbeta Holdings to lead strategy and investment, the Makombe Farms site in Central Province is secured by agreement with the landowner, pre-feasibility is completed, and grid headroom for up to 100 MW is confirmed.

Today

So it never happens again

Kariba is recovering and no nationwide load shedding is forecast for 2026, but the structural risk has not gone anywhere: Zambia’s grid is still over 80 percent hydro, and national demand is racing toward a 10,000 MW target by 2030. Zubalight is developing the 50 MWac Makombe Solar Plant, with a pipeline beyond 500 MW, so the sun carries its share of the load next time the rains fail.

Partner With Us See the Makombe Solar Plant

The Team

Assembled for a common cause

Three decades of national utility leadership, 40 years of high-voltage substation construction, legal and regulatory depth, and commercial strategy. These are the people who decided the blackout would not be the end of the story. Click a profile to read more.