Load-shedding in Kitwe, Zambia: Effects and implications on household and local economies

Despite increased global energy supply, many households have insufficient access to energy in developing countries. Power utility companies, mostly parastatals, fail to cope with the burgeoning energy demand. This results in load shedding and impacts strongly associated with people's socio-economic classification. With poorer residential areas disproportionately adversely affected, socio-spatial segregation across urban space is evident. Using the socio-spatial segregation framework, this study employed convergent parallel mixed methods to examine effects of load shedding on households in Kitwe. Research objectives were to (1) investigate how household SMEs were affected by load shedding (2) find out dominant energy mixes in the economically differentiated residential areas (3) establish if there are any theoretical implications of the effects of load shedding on the residential area categorisation. A questionnaire was administered to 510 low, middle and high-income residential area households. Data were analysed using content analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics. Results reveal similar socio-economic effects across all groups except household income for middle and high-income areas. Small businesses experienced reduced profits with increased business costs especially for high-income areas. In conclusion, socio-spatial segregation created little difference in social and economic impacts at household level implying reducing inequalities due to increasing informal sector activities.