To play its part in climate change mitigation, the Government has decided to replace incandescent lights and other lights in households, government and commercial premises by LED lights which are more efficient. This programme is a Government driven demand side management (DSM) initiative to reduce electricity consumption in households, government and commercial buildings as well as street lighting. This initiative will address both climate change issues and energy shortage. Energy is in short supply in the country and in the SADC region.

So far the Ministry of Energy and Power Development has carried out a pilot project at its head office, where incandescent bulbs have been replaced by LED lights. The National Electricity Utility and the Energy Regulator have done likewise at their head quarters. The pilot project realised at least 515 000 kWh of electricity annually mitigating more than 531 tCO2 equivalent of carbon emissions. The planned retrofitting of 250W with 90W LED lights in the City of Harare (capital of Zimbabwe) is expected to reduce electricity consumption by at least 40 GWh per year and reducing GHG emissions by at least 23 443 tCO2. However due to financial constraints the programme may take time to be done at a national scale. The LED lights which have been used are imports because there is no capacity to manufacture in the country. This means that there are a lot of issues that include technology transfer, financing the completion of the programme and awareness creation to get the product accepted by the general public.