By 
By Ross Moyo
Zimbabwe Electricty Supply Authority (ZESA) chairman, Dr Sydney Gata has assured Zimbabweans the end of loadshedding earmarking an additional 2690 megawatts of electricity double the current.Dr Gata unveiled a timeline for power sector transformation, which includes significant milestones that promise to reshape Zimbabwe’s electricity landscape over the next decade.
According to Dr Gata who had a sit down with the media yesterday, “As of 2024, ZESA started with clearance of a connections backlog, and next year will mark the end of load shedding.”
“In 2026, the strategic plan is to clear the connections backlog. In 2027 the agenda is to end power imports, and target to be a net exporter of power by 2028. The target for 2029 is to be a world-class power lighting country and ultimately achieve universal access to electricity by 2030,” the Zesa boss exclaimed.
“There have been considerable investments. We now have captive power plant projects, they are six, which together add up to more than 1000MW that are being commenced, most of them in the next month,” said Dr Gata.
Nine new power station projects in total are starting this month according to the Zesa chairman.
“We are doing the groundbreaking for three of them next month. They together will give us 2 690MW and our current dependable capacity hovers around 1500MW but quite often it can go as low as 1000MW.
“Next year up to December 2025, we shall have commissioned at least six of these projects aggregating to an additional new capacity of 2 690MW which is almost double our current dependable capacity,” said Dr Gata.
Dr Gata praised the Second Republic’s strategic leadership for nudging them to strategize this cocktail of measures that will stop load shedding once and for all.
“Another measure that we have taken to mitigate currency risk involves internalising the production of all the hardware that we deploy in the electricity supply industry.
“We have already commissioned an SPV that will manufacture cables and conductors. We need to replace some 24,000 kilometres of underground cable conductors in this country because they are old and rotten.
“So, we engaged a UAE company with access to both capital and technology to manufacture conductors and cables in this country as ZESA Enterprises,” said Dr Gata.
“We have been unfortunate with Kariba hydrology or Zambezi hydrology to be more accurate. We have lost the capacity of Kariba… drastic losses. For instance the power station is rated at 1050MW today but we are hardly producing 150MW.
“What hurts the most is that Kariba is normally our baseload plant because it is cheap to deploy and also highly reliable. Hydropower plants have less equipment on them and are more stable to operate than confined power plants throughout the world.
“So, we lost our cheapest source of energy and our most reliable source of energy and that explains today’s load shedding,” said Dr Gata.
Hwange thermal power plant, more than 45-years-old, has not helped matters just like Kariba has been underperforming on power generation even though future generations and current stand to benefit from Zesa’s timely intervention.
Comments