Business Reporter/Engineering News

Zimbabwe is opening up its doors to investors for its energy sector, Energy and Power Development Minister Engineer Elias Mudzuri said on Tuesday, adding that Government was also considering offering potential tax holidays for those investors willing to participate in the development of large power projects in the country.

The minister told delegates at the Southern African Energy Week conference, in Johannesburg, South Africa, that Government was hoping to attract investors to participate in the development of Zimbabwe’s energy sector through public–private partnerships or any other joint venture model, as well as participation from independent power producers.

The country produces about 1 100 megawatts of electricity on average, with a peak demand of about 2 100MW.

It imports about 35 percent of its electricity requirements from its neighbours and could not expand this, as the Southern African region is struggling with an energy deficit.

This means that Zimbabwe imports about 200MW of electricity from its neighbours, leaving the country with a shortfall of about 800MW.

Eng Mudzuri said that Government had come up with short-term measures to try and mitigate this shortage, noting that this included the rehabilitation of a number of power stations and transmission and distribution systems.

There were also plans to expand the Hwange coal-fired power station by 600MW and the Karibhydropower station by about 300MW.

However, there was huge further potential to expand power generation capacity through hydropower projects, which could deliver an additional 5 000MW.

Other smaller hydropower projects that could be constructed near small rivers and dams could add more than 200MW to the country’s generation capacity.

Eng Mudzuri noted that Zimbabwe was looking for independent power producers to help develop or to set up these projects, saying that producers did not necessarily have to export the power to the national grid.

Independent power producers would also be allowed to sell their power to other electricity users in the country.

Other options for expanding the power generation capacity of Zimbabwe included the country’s coal-bed methane reserves of about 1,1 trillion cubic feet, as well as its 11,8 billion metric tons of coal.

Zimbabwe was also looking at renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, biomass and bagasse.

Zesa requires about US$385 million to upgrade and replace vandalised equipment while the World Bank put the cost of rehabilitating the Hwange Thermal Power Station at US$135 million.

Zesa’s external debt stands at US$317 million while its internal debt is US$111 million.

However, Finance Minister Tendai Biti set aside US$52,6 million for Zesa in the 2010 National Budget while the African Development Bank undertook to provide US$51 million and the European Union pledged US$1,4 million to the power utility.

Zesa has had to resort to load-shedding as a way of spreading the available power.

However, this has adversely affected most industries which in some instance have resorted to importing their own power as well as making use of generators. — Business Reporter/Engineering News

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