Zimbabwe power shortages likely to ease from tomorrow when Unit 7 is brought back to the grid

Unit 8 was synchronised on Thursday last week and it was run for about three hours until they discovered that there was an area that they needed to attend to and it was briefly taken off the grid. They have been working on the unit and according to what they had pre-determined at a time when they took it off the grid, the unit was supposed to be tied back to the grid today. We are yet to hear from the power utility whether that has happened.  We now expect that we will be having contribution of 600 megawatts that will be coming from the expansion project any time before the end of this month; the 300 megawatts coming on commercial availability and the 300 megawatts from Unit 8 still on commercial test.

That is going to assist us in a big way given that for Kariba, we have managed to increase generation from the power station with the additional water allocation which was made after the two utilities, ZESCO and ZESA met with the ZRA who managed the water resources and agreed to improve on the water allocations. As for today, the maximum that was being generated from Kariba was getting up to 800 megawatts.

I now come to the question that was raised with regards to about 200 megawatts with the independent power producers where the Hon. Senator is suggesting that ZESA does not seem to be doing much to getting access to the 2000 megawatts.  I do not think that information is correct Mr. President, we are only aware of about 1.2 megawatts of a power station that was recently completed in Seke which our technicians from ZETDC are working with the investor and are currently seized with in order to bring that to the grid. 

I am aware that in terms of the capacity that is registered with ZERA, it could be in excess of the 2000 that he is referring to but this is what has just been licenced by ZERA and not much has happened with the independent power producers.  Again, the question as to what the Government is doing to ensure that if there are any challenges with independent producers, the challenges are being attended to; you might be aware that previously, the major constraint or set back was on currencies, most of the investors who were coming into the country were not amenable to immediately develop their projects until the Government made last year the availability of Government implement agreement, which now provides a mitigation against a currency convertibility and also mitigation against performance by the off-taker which is our power utility ZETDC. 

So, that has now been taken care of and also to the independent power producers who are coming to invest, there are quite a number of incentives that are being provided by the Government of Zimbabwe.  I will refer you to the National Renewable Energy Policy which was launched by His Excellency the President in 2020, it spells quite a number of incentives that are on offer by the Government, one of them being access to land.  When an investor is coming to Zimbabwe, with the intention of establishing a power station, access to land is provided by the Government of Zimbabwe.  Over and above that, we also give rebates for importation of materials that are used for establishment of renewable energy projects and in some instances, tax holidays can be offered to investors.

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