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Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
ENERGY and Power Development Minister, Zhemu Soda, says a number of planned electricity generation projects by licenced Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are in limbo due to funding constraints.
Since 2010, the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) has licenced over 70 IPPs to establish electricity generation plants across the country but the investments have failed to take off.
The licenced IPPs have promised to produce over 6 000MW combined, but the projects are presently producing 135MW.
Responding to questions in Parliament Wednesday, Minister Soda said after licensing by Zera, the bulk of the IPPs went to the market to scout for funding from potential investors but to no avail.
“Up to now not many of them (IPPs) have produced anything. Some of them were issued with these licences more than five years ago but what has been happening is that the prospectors came and applied for licences without funding.
“After they had acquired licences, they would then start to look for investors to assist them but most of them failed to attract investors to implement their projects,” he said.
Minister Soda said this is why most of the IPPs have failed to come up with electricity that they had promised to generate.
Zimbabwe requires an additional 9 000MW to support economic activities that will drive the country towards achieving an upper middle-income economy by 2030.
At present, the country’s demand for power hovers around 2 000MW.
-@okazunga
Online Reporter