adminMartin Kadzere, Senior Business Reporter
MAKOMO Resources in partnership with Southern Energy, a Mauritius based company will start building a 660 megawatt thermal plant early next year, an official said.
“We are expecting to begin the civil works in the first quarter next year,” the official said in an interview yesterday. “We are anticipating that the project will take two years from the day of commencement. Ideally, we should be able to commission the two x 330 MW units in early 2017 if all things go according to plan.”
The official could not reveal how much the project would cost saying the company was still going through a procurement process to “come up with an actual budget.
“That process should be done before year end and we have engaged international financiers.”
The power generated will be fed directly into the national grid while the excess will be exported.
Once completed, the project, to be located in Hwange coal fields, is set to become the largest investment into the power sector in 26 years and one of the largest in the country.
Zimbabwe is under pressure to close the demand supply gap that has spawned rolling power cuts. The country produces about 1 200 megawatts against peak demand of 2 200MW.
Increased power generation is one of the critical requirements of Zim-Asset under the Infrastructure and Utilities cluster.
The Zim-Asset blueprint is built around other strategic clusters namely Food Security and Nutrition, Social Services and Poverty Eradication and Value Addition and Beneficiation.
Government, through the Zimbabwe Power Company, is working to close the deficit through the expansion of Hwange for an additional 600MW and Kariba South for 300MW. Zimbabwe has not invested in expansion capacity in close to three decades.
In terms of coal availability for the Makomo project, there is sufficient coal to kick start the project. But discussions were underway with other mining firms to ensure there is enough “fuel” to power the station going forward.
“For now it is sufficient but we need to argument supplies in future to support the life span of the power plant.”
Various power projects are in the pipeline with foreign investors, mainly from Asia, are expressing interest in the country’s power sector and are looking at generating electricity from solar, coal and methane gas. Two Chinese companies — China Jiangxi Corporation and ZTE Corporation — are among three companies that recently won tenders to build 100 megawatt solar plants in Gwanda at a cost of $184 million each.
Indian state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited and Shandong of China are among companies that have also expressed interest in partnering RioZim Limited in setting up 250 megawatt plants at its vast coal fields in Gokwe.
The short-term strategy envisages the construction of a number of smaller power plants over the next 10 years, RioZim said. Its energy unit, Rio Energy, is in the process of bringing in technical and financial partners.
China Africa Sunlight Energy and a leading Chinese bank are discussing terms of a possible loan worth $1,6 billion to fund the setup and construction of a coal mine and a power station in Gwayi.
Online Reporter