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Felex Share Senior Reporter
The Ministry of Energy and Power Development has ordered Zesa Holdings to engage a South African company to install 60 000 smart meters worth millions of dollars ostensibly to accelerate progress, although local firms want an open tender floated.
The ministry argues that many customers should be either on a prepaid or smart meter platform to realise more revenue, and greater power savings, that will enable the power utility to meet the high operating costs that come with the use of an emergency diesel power plant early next year.
Zesa had fine-tuned the specifications and was about to float a new tender, after the State Procurement Board cancelled the initial one following the inflation of the quantity of units needed by 80 percent by former Energy and Power Development Minister Dzikamai Mavhaire.
Secretary for Energy and Power Development Mr Partson Mbiriri gave Zesa the directive to engage Palace Group Investments of South Africa to the power utility’s then acting chief executive, Mr Eliab Chikwenhere, in a letter dated November 4, 2015.
“As already indicated to the group chief executive officer (Josh Chifamba), Cabinet has considered the contents of Palace Group Investments-Zesa Holdings Memorandum of Understanding and has in principle agreed to the same,” Mr Mbiriri said.
“In this regard Cabinet has suggested that the two parties enter into contract negotiations. Once the draft contract is ready, this should be taken back to Cabinet for its possible endorsement of the contract. Accordingly please proceed to engage the Palace Group Investments and avail us a copy of the draft contract before signing.”
Mr Mbiriri said to cater for the high operating costs that would come with the emergency power plant, to be powered by diesel, there was need to have more customers on prepaid and smart meters.
“The only way this can be done quickly is by engaging the Palace Group Investments, the ANC- affiliated company, whose proposal is to install the smart meters – off a Zesa’s poor balance sheet — subject to terms and conditions, which are acceptable to Zesa Holdings,” he indicated in an earlier November 3 communication to the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda.
To battle the acute power shortages affecting the country, Zesa intends to install a 200-megawatt emergency diesel power plant at Dema substation in Seke which should be operational by next February.
The emergency power plant is being introduced as a stop-gap measure while big power generating projects are under construction and three foreign companies have been enlisted for the contract.
Local companies which approached The Herald described the latest development as unfair as they were also entitled to compete with foreign companies.
“We have a local private company (Connect the World) which a few years ago successfully pilot-tested the smart meter technology and it means we have local companies that are able to deliver. We initially bought tender documents for the tender, which was cancelled because of bungling by Mr Mavhaire and we were also angling for the new one which was about to be floated,” said one.
While residential and small commercial users can be catered for with pre-paid meters, which supply energy, industrial, mining and otehr major users require smart meters because of the different tariff structure applicable to them.
The technology has the ability to save about 300MW, which is currently being lost due to technical leakages and poor energy management.
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