Translate words into action

instalment, and for several reasons, I presented solar energy as the best clean energy source for the country.
Sunlight is plentiful in Zimbabwe and we have a market starved of reliable electricity supplies for a very long time.
Compared to other energy options such as thermal, solar has also been found to be substantially cheaper.
The energy race is one essentially necessitated by the increasing demands for the efficient use of limited energy resources in a rapidly warming earth.
It should be noted that transforming Zimbabwe into a low-carbon economy will not be easy.
The biggest challenge is not identifying the problem but integrating the environment into every sphere of the national development agenda, policy formulation and budgeting as well as implementation of strategies.
However, as a developing nation, Zimbabwe is supposed to join the global commonwealth of reason by instituting policies that improve environmental governance and management and curb the impacts of climate change on human life.
So in the quest for sustainable development, where else can solar be used to help neutralise and limit production of greenhouse gas emissions from the use of fossil fuels such as coal for power generation?
Apart from household and industrial lighting, heating and cooking, solar may be successfully used in farming.
For those farmers using irrigation, solar-powered water pumps can replace electric pumps, saving energy and ensuring uninterrupted irrigation activities.
Numerous farmers in Zimbabwe have constantly complained of frequent disruptions in farming and irrigation due to unreliable electricity supplies. Solar power can remedy that limitation since it has been successfully utilised elsewhere.
The Rwandese government announced in December that it would acquire 19 000 solar-powered pumps for distribution to its farmers until 2016.
Similar strategies could be implemented here where electricity in farming areas is a big challenge, and where thousands of new small-scale farmers needing Government support to make it in farming have emerged.
Also, farmers currently using firewood for tobacco curing could opt for solar driers instead of electricity, coal or wood-fired barns.
The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board has previously said it is experimenting with the use of solar in curing tobacco, in the hope that such a move would limit reckless forests clearing in tobacco farming areas.
If solar barns were adopted for curing tobacco in Zimbabwe, it would help save and preserve forests from the shortsighted farmers’ unforgiving axe in a big way.
Agriculture preparation and tobacco curing account for more 55 percent of all forest losses in the country, estimated at 330 000 hectares, according to the Forestry Commission of Zimbabwe.
Yet, trees are important, acting as carbon sinks that suck up the world’s dangerous greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
Trees also provide food, cover from the sun, beauty and oxygen that are crucial for human survival.
Given the current shortage of electricity, the rural electrification programme may be based on solar and other mini-solar power stations.
The Medium Term Plan has already acknowledged that “grid extension was an expensive and inefficient way of electrifying rural areas” because of their sparse population distribution patterns.
However, the nearly US$30 million collected by the Rural Electrification Agency from compulsory electricity levies every year could be utilised to fund solar-based initiatives such as cooking, lighting and heating in rural schools, clinics, Government offices, etc.
Managing director of Solar Solutions Africa in Harare, who is also an energy consultant, Mr Flavian Nyikadzino Gonese, suggested that the information communication technologies rollout programme targeting rural schools should prioritise the use of solar.
He said that instead of receiving PCs schools should be given laptops, which consume less energy and can be solar-powered.
Laptops run on direct current, which is the power generated by solar while PCs use alternating current and therefore require an inverter to run on solar.
Explained Mr Gonese: “A PC requires 800 watts per hour as opposed to a laptop that consumes an average of between 60-80 watts per hour.
“What this means is that the power needed for an 800-watts rated PC can power 13 laptops rated 60 watts per hour.” In both rural and urban areas, private investors may be secured for installing mini-solar systems or on-grid solar systems, which are small grids feeding into the main Zesa grid, and Zesa will pay you for power generated at tariffs designated by the electricity regulator, ZERA.
Mr Gonese said on-grid solar systems alleviate electricity shortages, providing additional power during daytime when they are in use.
Now, the challenge is to get investors in renewable energy on board, which has always been a challenge that is difficult to solve for Zimbabwe.
There has, however, been encouraging reports in recent days of a Chinese firm seeking a licence to establish a 120MW solar station.
The other challenge is to make the environment a major priority, and start building capacity for a green economy.
Although concrete policy action is still weak, it provides pleasant hope the concept of sustainable development in a green economy has now attracted active interest from policymakers.
There have been insinuations of integrating environmental sustainability in Zimbabwe’s future budgetary processes.
The 2012 Budget Statement said: “. . . the inclusivity of our quest for rapid growth should be extended to embrace environmental sustainability, with all our budget programmes rigorously subjected to scrutiny over their ‘green economy’ friendliness”.
It is imperative that Government continues to support the greater use of solar energy by households and industry, thereby augmenting existing energy supply, as well as encouraging a green environment.
Recognising the impacts of climate change at Government level is crucial. It provides hope for solutions to curb impacts of climate change, and even the causes thereof.
What remains to be seen is words translating into action.
God is faithful.