adminBrighton Gumbo, Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) has licensed more than 20 Independent Power Producers (IPPs) with a combined capacity of producing up to 5,000 megawatts of electricity.
Zera chief executive officer Gloria Magombo told consumers during a public meeting on energy in Bulawayo Tuesday that only eight of the licensed firms were operational.
“We’ve licensed more than 20 power projects with a combined capacity of producing over 5,000MW,” said Magombo.
“Among them is China Africa Sunlight Energy’s 600MW Gwayi Power Station, Shangano 600MW, Lusulu 2,000MW and 250MW Geobase Gwanda Solar Plant.”
She cited lack of funding for delays in implementation of some of the licensed projects, which she said require millions of dollars.
Magombo said local energy demand was expected to clock 5,200MW in the next 15 years hence the need to invest more in power generation.
“We’ve licensed more than enough players, which we hope will be able to meet the national demand come 2030,” said Magombo.
“We’re also targeting the South African power project and the coming in of the Grand Inga hydropower project of the Democratic Republic of Congo with a massive 40,000MW of electricity to allow us to have access to imports.”
She said IPPs were the solution to the power supply problems hence the government’s desire to attract more of them into the sector.
Magombo said schools have started adopting biogas as an alternative environmentally friendly energy source.
“We’re still going on with our outreach programme on the usage of renewable sources of energy. We’ll reach out to large supermarkets and recommend they install solar on their roof tops for the air conditioning and refrigerators so as to ease pressure on the national grid,” she said.
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