This article was originally published in RE Magazine, NRECA’s flagship publication, on October 29, 2024.
Authors: Zuraidah Hoffman and Erin Kelly
In the small Zambian town of Ntatumbila, most of the important civic decisions are made beneath one of the village’s mature shade trees, where groups of residents can gather and deliberate protected from the fierce southern African sun.
It was under one such tree next to the town’s school that 150 villagers assembled in July 2023 to approve the bylaws and elect the board of directors for Zambia’s first member-owned utility, the Ntatumbila Power Electric Cooperative (NPEC).One year later, as the final work is being completed on the co-op’s minigrid system, Godfrey Siame, the headman of Ntatumbila, sits beneath that tree and thinks about how much things are changing.
“The community is excited about the electricity that is coming,” he says.
Residents are replacing their thatched roofs with more electricity-friendly sheet metal, and people who currently live outside that town are starting to build new homes near the coming grid.
“They’re getting ready.”