adminMartin Kadzere Senior Business Reporter
The Zimbabwe Power Company will soon float tenders for the upgrade of Bulawayo and Munyati power plants to speed up rehabilitation of the thermal stations.
Munyati, situated about five kilometres off the Harare-Bulawayo Road at the 183-kilometre peg has capacity to generate 100 megawatts, but is operating at 20 percent capacity due to inefficiencies arising from the use of outdated equipment.
There is power being generated at Bulawayo plant, according to yesterday’s ZPC generations statistics although it is below the 120MW capacity.
“ZPC is expected to float the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) tenders on Bulawayo and Munyati re-powering soon,” the company’s spokesperson Ms Fadzai Chisveto said yesterday.
She also said recommendations for the Harare Power Station unit 2 tender have been forwarded to the State Procurement Board.
The Harare Power Station unit 2 has 75MW capacity but is only generating about 20MW. On Kariba hydro expansion project, Ms Chisveto said the project was on course, but has failed to get off the ground as initially planned.
The $368 million project, being undertaken by Sino Hydro, was initially scheduled to commence in January.
“Sino Hydro has already started working on preparations for the project, and has established offices and accommodation for their staff,” said Ms Chisveto.
“Clearing works are still in progress on the mixing plant and tailrace areas, hence to say that we are facing challenges would be incorrect.
“This is a major project and it is critical to ensure that the right procedures are adhered to in order to ensure its success. We are working on new time-lines for the project to commence.”
Zimbabwe, with vast potential for energy investments, is generating an average of 1 200MW against demand of 2 300MW. It also imports about 35MW mainly from Mozambique. The country has coal resources of between 10 billion tonnes and 15 billion tonnes of coal, according to Government estimates.
Investors, mainly from China are showing interests in Zimbabwe’s energy sector and are looking at generating electricity from solar, coal and methane gas.
China Africa Sunlight Energy intends to invest $2,1 billion developing coal mines and building a 2 100MW plant in Gwayi, 703 kilometres southwest of Harare.
The company, a joint venture between Old Stone Investments Ltd of Zimbabwe and Shandong Taishan Sunlight, expect to start with capacity of 300MW by mid-2015 and raise this to 600MW by the end of the same year, according to the company.
The SPB contracted China Jiangxi Corporation to build a solar plant at a cost of $184 million.
Online Reporter