The Southern Africa Renewable Energy Zones were identified as part of the Renewable Energy Deployment Support (REDS) tools project focused on the twelve conterminous member countries of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP).

This project is a collaboration between the University of California Santa Barbara, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Centre of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (SACREEE), the Nature Conservancy, the University of Cape Town, and Blue Marble Analytics. It was supported by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of the Government of the United Kingdom through the Oxford Policy Management Ltd under the Energy and Economic Growth (EEG) programme.

This study was completed in 2022 and results are more recent than the SEAREZ project.