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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
Plans are underway to provide Government guarantees to independent power producers (IPPs) as part of efforts to address electricity shortages that have led to massive load shedding across the country, Energy and Power Development Minister Zhemu Soda has said.
He said this yesterday while briefing Parliament on the electricity supply situation.
Zimbabwe is enduring long hours of power cuts due to a decline in generation capacity at the Kariba Hydro Power Station because of low water levels.
Yesterday, the country was producing 537MW against a demand of 1 800MW, resulting in load shedding.
“Currently, a total of about 100 projects have been licensed by Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority. The Ministry is engaging the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to help de-risk IPP projects through provision of Government Implementation Agreements (GIA) on projects, which have been awaiting Government Guarantees to reach financial closure.
“Three pilot projects have received the GIA and standard power purchasing agreements documents, whilst an additional eight projects are being reviewed for readiness and special consideration for GIAs,” he said.
Minister Soda added that his ministry was also finalising the formulation of the competitive procurement framework for development of renewable energy capacity.
Competitive procurement refers to a set of procedures for developing a procurement contract through a bidding or proposal process.
The intent is to solicit fair, impartial and competitive bids.
He also said the ministry, working in conjunction with ZESA, has devised ways to mitigate the power supply situation in the immediate term.
“The ministry together with its utility ZESA has come up with the following measures to mitigate the situation in the immediate term: Increase imports from the region from initial 260MW to 300MW following payment of US$5 million.
“Currently negotiations are ongoing to increase imports from EDM (Electricidade de Moçambique) by 150MW and potential for some additional power that will be secured through participation on the SAPP (Southern African Power Pool) electricity market. This will increase the imports to 500MW,” he said.
Plans are also underway to ramp up local power generation through increasing generation capacity at Hwange Power Station to 400MW.
Yesterday, Hwange was generating 366MW while Kariba was churning out 171MW despite being allowed by the Zambezi River Authority to generate up to 300MW.
Small thermals are expected to contribute a combined 45MW, although none of the three — Munyati, Harare and Bulawayo — was generating yesterday.
IPPs will be expected to contribute up to 75MW.
Minister Zhemu said power generation had been curtailed due to coal unavailability because of delayed payments.
“To that end, US$25 million has been requested from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development as a rescue package to cover import arrears, coal supply and transport costs and IPPs,” he said.
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