Source: Zera licenses 39 power producers | The Sunday Mail

Tanyaradzwa Rusike

THE Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) has licensed 39 Independent Power Producers (IPPs) over the last two years, with 18 of them already contributing power to the national grid.

The Sunday Mail has gathered that the operational IPPs are already feeding up to 132 megawatts into the national grid.

ZERA chief executive officer Engineer Eddington Mazambani said the rest of the power projects were at different stages of implementation.

All the licensed IPPs have a combined installed capacity of 1 227 megawatts.

“There are 18 IPPs that are currently generating power for own consumption and are also feeding into the grid while 8 IPPs are under construction.

“The reminder are at different stages of either feasibility studies or funding stage,” said Eng Mazambani.

Of the 18 operational IPPs, Triangle is producing 35MW, while Hippo Valley is producing 39MW.

Pungwe B is accounting for 15,25MW while the Green Fuel plant is producing 18,3MW.

The rest of the plants are producing up to 3MW.

Eng Mazambani said most of the projects were generating power through solar, coal, diesel, hydro and bagasse.

He said Zera was revoking licences of idle IPPs. “The authority is carrying out an exercise of revoking licences from IPPs that are not making progress and holding on to licences for speculative purposes and to date we have revoked 7 licences.”

Zimbabwe’s energy supply has been fragile over the years and the country often relied on imports to plug shortfalls.