By Ross Moyo

The United States of America and Europe is making overtures to invest in Zimbabwe Energy Sector. Global Firms Vie With China in Zimbabwe Energy, according to Zimbabwe Minister of Energy and Power Development July Moyo.

The Western nations are considering investing in Zimbabwe’s energy industry with the country’s energy and power development minister confirming to the media on the sidelines of the African Energy Week conference held recently in Cape Town.

The Southern African nation has been locked out of international capital markets since 1999, restricting access to cheaper financing and making it difficult to attract investors.

Minister Moyo and authorities unveiled a plan to raise more than $9 billion to boost energy access in a country hit by regular power outages due to a lack of generation capacity.
The US and other western nations are considering investing in Zimbabwe’s energy industry, long-dominated by Chinese investors, with American interest adding to Middle Eastern and Russian investors who are already present in the southern African nation.

Moyo confirmed to the media on the sidelines of the African Energy Week conference in Cape Town on Tuesday.

“Some of the Western countries including America are now talking about: ‘Hey you have coal, you have gas,’” he said. “We have plenty in Zimbabwe.”

Zimbabwe has been locked out of international capital markets since 1999, after it defaulted on loans from lenders including the World Bank, the Paris Club and the African Development Bank. That restricts access to cheaper financing, making it difficult for the country to attract investors and get projects off the ground.

Zimbabwe generates 56% of its electricity from coal at a plant located in the western town of Hwange. The facility has an installed capacity of 1,500 megawatts, after the addition of 600 megawatts by China’s Sinohydro Ltd. in 2023. The country also generates 750 megawatts from Kariba Hydro Power, which was built by Sinohydro, adding 300 megawatts in 2025.

Some Zimbabwean officials last week attended a meeting in Washington DC addressed by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

“We didn’t talk to him face to face, but we very buoyant by the fact that the present administration accepts that coal and gas are necessary, while we look for renewable energy as a transition,” he said. “We have investors who want to look at coal bed methane gas,” the minister said, without providing further details.

Zimbabwe authorities in June unveiled the aforementioned plan to raise more than $9 billion to boost energy access in a country hit by regular power outages — often lasting most of the day —- because of a lack of generation capacity. The plan, which falls under the World Bank and African Development Bank’s Mission 300 program, envisages a more than doubling of power output from hydro, wind, solar and biomass plants.