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Farirai Machivenyika recently in MASVINGO
The construction of the US$14,5 million 5MW mini-hydropower plant at Lake Mutirikwi in Masvingo is almost complete, with the contractor expected to finish the required tests in the next two weeks before the electricity can be fed into the national grid by the end of this year, an official with the contractor has said.
The Great Zimbabwe Hydro Power Company is building the power plant.
It has also constructed a 25km long powerline that will connect the power plant to the national grid. While small, with an output of less than 2 percent of the present Kariba South average and less than one percent of the Kariba average with normal river flows, the mini-scheme will still be able to ensure that the irrigation pumping from the lake is maintained and provide some assured power for users in the vicinity.
Site manager for Great Zimbabwe Hydro Power Company Engineer Osteen Chiboora told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Resettlement that visited the power plant to assess progress that the project is now in the home stretch.
“We are developing a 5MW plant at Lake Mutirikwi. We have moved significantly with our project and we are now at 97 percent complete,” he said.
Eng Chiboora said the project started with the completion of the access road followed by the construction of the transmission line and main civil works.
“These works are substantially complete; that is why we are saying we are 97 percent complete,” he explained.
“The stage we are now on is what we call commissioning. We started with dry commissioning, which is now 100 percent done and now we are starting wet commissioning where we will actually be running the plant at the same time synchronising it with the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company.
“When the synchronisation is successful, then we are ready to deliver power into the national grid. In the coming two weeks, we will likely finish all these processes.”
Eng Chiboora added that the 5MW of electricity to be generated at the mini-hydro plant will help Masvingo domestic uses. Government has since announced plans to have a second 5MW plant further downstream, to take the power output along Mutirikwi River to 10MW.
Zimbabwe National Water Authority director of water supply services and rural development, Engineer Waddilove Mandiziba said water used for electricity generation would be released downstream for other users, so the station will use the water released for irrigation and mining companies who rely on the lake.
“The power station comprises two generators of 2,5 MW each to make the 5MW. The water that’s being used will be released downstream for other users that include the miners and irrigators. We call this non-consumptive water use which we hope to replicate at existing dams and the new ones being constructed,” he said.
Another 17MW hydropower plant is planned for Tugwi Mukosi Dam, the country’s largest interior dam, also located in Masvingo Province.
The Great Zimbabwe Hydro Power Company is working with a Danish company, Frontier Energy and Old Mutual Life Assurance, at the power plant.
Government has come up with a new policy to maximise use of water in the country’s dams, not only for domestic purposes, but also for other economic uses like irrigation, power generation and establishment of fisheries.
Online Reporter