William Bain partners with foreign firm
THE country’s leading manufacturer of agricultural equipment, William Bain Holdings, has entered into a partnership with Oursun Energy Private Limited, which is part of the Swiss-based clean energy provider, The Meeco Group to support development of clean energy in Zimbabwe.
Business Reporter
In a joint statement yesterday, the two companies said they had plans to stimulate the local market for Sun2flow solar-based water pumping systems.
Sun2flow combines high-end solar panels with water pumping and irrigation devices, which ideally suit remote off-grid areas. Part of Meeco’s broad and high-technological product range, Sun2flow fits perfectly with farmers’ expectations and needs.
According to the group, the units can easily pump water from artificial and natural water reservoirs into distant tanks.
The group said experienced specialists from William Bain Holdings had been trained to assemble the Sun2flow mobile units for the Zimbabwean as well as for the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) market, which comprises 15 countries.
“Solar power has enormous energy generation capacity that also can be tapped for sustainable economic growth and helps to bridge the current power deficit in the country”, Oursun Energy (Private) Ltd director Simbarashe Mhuriro said.
“With this project and partnership, the Meeco Group as a multinational player in the clean energy market wants to support the growth of small to medium scale agriculture businesses, provide energy to rural communities and create as much local content as possible.
“To stimulate the local manufacturing industry most of our components for our installations will be produced locally.
“We envision to reach a total energy capacity of 230megawatts within the next four to five years and thus become an important independent power producer in Zimbabwe and certainly in the region as well,” Mhuriro said
William Bain Holdings managing director Graeme Smith has successfully run similar projects at Green Fuel Project.
“Working with Graeme Smith will prove invaluable benefits,” Mhuriro said.
“Together with William Bain we are looking forward to developing a local energy product – Sun2flow mobile – which is Swiss/German engineered and will also be produced in Zimbabwe.”
By partnering with local companies like William Bain, Oursun Energy (Private) Ltd, The Meeco Group said was looking forward to passing on skills, stimulating local manufacturing as well as generating employment and supporting the government Zimbabwean Agenda for Socio-Economic Sustainable Transformation (ZimAsset) programme, which was launched in 2013 to set renewable and energy efficiency targets. ZimAsset aims at increasing the use of renewable energy resources by 300 megawatts by 2018.
William Bain will also provide case-by-case support to Oursun and the Sun2live projects by manufacturing custom-specific roof and ground-mounting structures via their special casting division.
The power units and pumps will arrive preassembled from meeco India (Pvt) Ltd, a subsidiary of The meeco Group in India.
The meeco Group was consolidated in 2000 and oriented its main focus towards the energy sector. With world headquarters located in Zug,
Switzerland, the group currently has over 50 employees working across four continents.
The Meeco Group has delivered over 320megawatts of clean, renewable energy solutions across four continents.