Gweru mulls bio gas project to solve water woes

Gweru City Council is looking to set up a bio gas project from waste material to avert power problems at the city’s major pump stations, Amapongokwe and Gwenoro, which have disrupted water supplies, a council official has said.

Mayor Hamutendi Kombayi saidrce recently that the local authority was already looking into possible sources of funding for the project.

“We are looking into renewable sources of energy like bio gas to supplement the current power supplies,” Kombayi said.

“We are therefore seeking investment into the project because we believe this could be a solution to our power problems.”

Zimbabwe suffers from rolling blackouts that have paralysed industry and mining while leaving households in the southern African country in the dark for hours on end, damaging an already fragile economy which generates 1 200 MW, nearly half the peak demand of 2 200 MW.

Gweru has been facing water cuts due to unreliable power supply at its pumping stations. Its move to bio fuel generation, one of the most environmentally friendly ways of generating renewable power, would mitigate the power shortages.

This follows Kwekwe and Gokwe local authorities which successfully implemented similar projects in April this year. Kwekwe awarded the tender to a private company while Gokwe engaged the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) to roll out the programme.

“We are calling for companies interested in the project to approach us so that the project takes off,” said Kombayi.- The Source

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