Zimbabwe’s Minister of Energy and Power Development Elias Mudzuri said on January 9 at the Southern African Energy Week conference that it was considering offering tax breaks for investors that were willing to participate in the development of large scale power projects in the country.
The southern African country is trying to ramp up its power investments via public-private partnerships (PPPs) and independent power producers (IPPs). Mudzuri said that the country was looking for IPPs to help develop or to set up these projects, saying that producers did not necessarily have to export the power to the national grid. IPPs would also be allowed to sell their power to other electricity users in the country. In June, Alternative Energy Africa reported that the government had difficulties attracting private investors which was hindering the country’s growth in the sector (Zimbabwe May Hold Up SAPP’s Smart Grid Dreams).
The country is currently producing about 1,100 MW of electricity with peak demand at 2,100 MW. Zimbabwe also relies heavily upon imports with about 35% of its electricity being imported by its neighbors in the South African Power Pool. However, the region suffers from energy shortages and is unable to meet Zimbabwe’s demand. In southern Africa, about 46,449 MW is currently available for energy consumption – short of the 1,272 MW more needed to meet the region’s maximum demand with a 10.2% safety reserve (Southern Africa Teams to Fight Energy Shortage by 2016).
Mudzuri said that the government had come up with short-term measures to try and mitigate this shortage, adding that this included the rehabilitation of a number of power stations and transmission and distribution systems. However, investment is hurting other projects such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s (NEPAD) plan to educate and provide ICT skills to residents. However, it has the potential to fall apart as lack of investment in the electric power generation and renewable energy sectors continue to undermine the organization’s efforts (NEPAD Undermined).
November reported Zimbabwe and Botswana were supposed to sign an inter-governmental MoU before the end of that month for the restoration of the Bulawayo Power Station (Zimbabwe and Botswana to Power Up). The two southern African countries concluded a deal in October that would signify the revival of the power plant by June 2010. However, no update has been given on the plan. In addition, ministers from Zimbabwe and Zambia were expected to meet on February 5 to discuss plans for the Batoka hydropower project set to increase the capacity of the countries’ national grids by 800 MW (Zim and Zam to Decide on Batoka Hydro).
Short-term initiatives are not going to solve Zimbabwe’s power generation problem, and without proper updates on those “measures,” it is hard to gauge if any progress is being made at all.
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