‘Zesa tariffs too low’

Business Reporter
Zimbabwe needs to review its electricity tariffs as they are still the cheapest in the Sadc region, energy expert Professor Anton Eberhard told journalists at a Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority breakfast meeting last week. Professor Eberhard was part of the peer review committee which consisted of senior electricity regulators from the Sadc region which was in Zimbabwe last week.

According to a recent study conducted by NorConsult Africa, Zimbabwe is at US9c per unit while other countries in the region have higher tariffs. “Zimbabwe is close to cost reflectivity if you look at it the tariffs are under 10 cents where the cost reflective study says it should be 10 to 15 cents so I think the tariff situation is quite close to where it should be,” said Professor Eberhard.

He added that Zimbabwe needed huge investments in power generation and more independent power producers to ease electricity challenges besetting the economy.

“The biggest problem in Zimbabwe is there is not enough power generation capacity to meet demand, but there is a need to bring investment into the country,” he said.

Zera chief executive Engineer Gloria Magombo recently said that about US$4,8 billion was needed across the supply chain for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, with US$2,5 billion needed for generation alone.

“In order to mitigate the power challenges we are currently facing, there is really an urgent need for new investment to come in so that we can bridge the gap between demand and supply until 2017, when we expect our own capacity to have improved to levels that can satisfy and sustain our requirements,” she said.

In the meantime, a number of independent companies have been licensed by Zera to generate and transmit power meant for their own consumption and these include Chisumbanje Green Fuel, Hippo Valley and Triangle.

Other independent power producers issued with licences are Essar Africa Holdings, China Africa Sunlight Energy and Manako Power.

Although it is reported that the output from these power producers will not contribute much to the total needs of the country, their contribution is commendable as the supply-demand gap is wide as it stands at between 100 and 300MW, largely depending on the availability and output at Kariba and Hwange.