How Chamisa would end Zimbabwe’s power crisis

We will lead in the setting of targets for renewable energy based on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) interventions submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), demand-supply scenario, grid absorption capacity, and the economic viability of our utilities to pay for renewable energy electricity from independent power producers (IPPs).

We will promote sustainable Feed-in Tariffs (FiT) for small hydropower, biomass, and geothermal projects as well as corruption-free competitive bidding for solar photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP), wind and other renewable energy sources. Off-grid energy will be promoted and incentivised to make them a viable option for our Citizens’ government. We will target 100% electrification of Zimbabwe by 2035.

We will address the socio-economic areas in our energy policies to include affordability and accessibility of energy from renewable sources, employment opportunities, diversity and inclusion especially gender equity, and food security, and improved access to basic facilities.

Our five-point plan for energy is informed by the suffering of our citizens due to the lack of sufficient energy to carry on with our economic activities. 

We plan: 

• to pursue sustainable energy for all and to mobilize action from all sectors of society in support of three interlinked objectives to be achieved by 2027; 
• providing universal access to modern energy services; 
• doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and 
• doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix in Zimbabwe.

We will expand generation by modernising our existing power plants through life extension technologies that are smart and green by 2027. We will build an energy efficiency revolution that creates an energy surplus by encouraging demand side management, energy efficiency and optimal use of our water resources in our hydropower generation systems dispatch and operations.

We will provide enough project financing and investment for power generation, transmission, distribution and supply systems with an emphasis on rural development and urbanization as well as install ethical, competent and professional human capital to run our utilities.

Our government will source, through the private sector, the sum of US$300 million dollars that is required to modernise our grid. Zimbabwe’s transmission infrastructure is archaic.

We will allow private players in the form of independent power producers (IPPs). We will implement sustainable energy development based on scientific &engineering studies that will continuously launch projects for solar power, energy Internet, carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), nuclear energy, storage, hydrogen and the total electrification of our country

Decades of lack of investment in energy infrastructure, visionary leadership, planning and corruption now haunting us. Averting a problem is always cheaper than treating it.- NewZWire

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