- Reuters reports that the chief executive of Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), Howard Choga, said that they aim add 2300MW grid capacity by 2025.
- This is to meet increasing demand mainly driven by the mining industry.
- The reality is that power generation projects in Zimbabwe are unable to get finance to build their projects because the off-taker, the government, is bankrupt plus corrupt.
Addressing a mining conference on Thursday last week in Victoria Falls, Choga in what can only be describe as irresponsible populist rhetoric, said “We expect that by 2025, we would have added 2 300 MW to the grid. I must say over 80% of the 2 300 MW is demand from miners.”
Zimbabwe currently has a generating capacity of 2 000 megawatts. As of Thursday, 01 June 2023, the Zimbabwe Power Company, a subsidiary of ZESA Holdings, was generating a total of 1 423 MW.
Related news: Zimbabwe’s energy supply hits rock bottom as Kariba and foreign currency dry up
Choga also revealed that Zambia and Mozambique cut off electricity supplies to Zimbabwe over failure to pay for imports. He said: “We have had a discontinuation of supply from Zambia and Mozambique because we failed to pay. After accumulated bills imports were then discontinued on March 13.”
In December 2021, the Government unveiled incentives meant to help bring 1 100 MW of new solar projects on stream by 2025 but little progress has been made due to a lack of investment in new energy projects.
Read more on Zimbabwe’s energy sector HERE
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
Source: Reuters
