Pan-African conglomerate Axian Group, led by Malagasy businessman Hassanein Hiridjee, has finalized a key power purchase agreement to construct a massive solar installation in Zambia. The deal signals growing private-sector momentum across Southern Africa as regional utilities turn toward independent power producers to stave off chronic, crippling electricity deficits.

Signed during the Energy Forum for Africa in Lusaka, the contract with intermediary off-taker Africa GreenCo clears the path for the 200-megawatt Kudu solar photovoltaic farm. Once fully operational, the utility-scale installation is projected to generate roughly 530 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity annually, ranking among Zambia’s largest single solar assets.

Rewiring Southern Africa’s grid

Unlike traditional sovereign off-take arrangements that rely exclusively on state utilities, Kudu will route generation through an open-market trading framework. Africa GreenCo will purchase the plant’s output directly before marketing power across national borders via the Southern African Power Pool, reducing direct fiscal strain on Zambia’s national power company, Zesco.

The trading model allows independent producers to bypass single-buyer credit risks, unlocking fresh commercial debt across the region. Axian Energy Chief Executive Benjamin Memmi noted the initiative builds on the company’s operating 54-megawatt Bangweulu solar array, giving the Madagascar-based industrial group a firmer operating footprint within copper-rich Zambia.

Financing packages for the installation are being assembled alongside South Africa’s Standard Bank Group and Stanbic Bank Zambia. The banking syndicate is steering the project toward final financial close before breaking ground, marking another commercial test case for merchant renewable power trading across sub-Saharan Africa’s shared electricity transmission corridors.

Axian’s rapid infrastructure expansion

The Zambian deal comes as Hiridjee accelerates a capital-intensive push across strategic African infrastructure. Over two decades, the Malagasy tycoon turned an Antananarivo family trading house into an industrial giant spanning telecommunications, fintech, real estate, and utility-scale energy, building operating footprints across 11 African and Indian Ocean markets.

Axian recorded $2.75 billion in revenue for 2024, deploying more than $1 billion in capital expenditure to date across core businesses. While its telecommunications arm oversees roughly 3,500 towers, the group’s power subsidiary operates 350 megawatts of renewable capacity and aims to scale its clean-energy portfolio to 2 gigawatts by 2030.

The Zambian deal caps an active week for Axian after the group locked in terms on the 120-megawatt Volobe hydroelectric project in Madagascar. Designed to yield 750 gigawatt-hours annually, that project will link Antananarivo to Toamasina, bringing reliable base-load renewable power to an estimated 2 million people.