Zimbabwe’s New 13-Kilometer Power Plant to Provide 25MW into National Grid

By Abdul Rahman Bangura–

Photo Credit: Public Domain Pictures

NEW AFRICA BUSINESS NEWS (NABN) Freetown, Sierra Leone– A 13-kilometre energy line correlating Zimbabwe Zhongxin Electrical Energy (Private) Limited’s new plant in Hwange and Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) is being nestled in willingness to commence sustaining the initial 25MW of electricity into the national grid in the second two months. The close advent of coal-fired power generation will be accomplished under the 50MW Phase One of the 320MW project.

The initial phase is totaled to cost about $10 million. Zimbabwe ZhongXin Electric Energy (ZZEE) Private Limited, is one of the independent power producers working on key development projects in Matabeleland – Northern Province, which are anticipated to navigate boosted ventures into the province and the nation at large.

The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera), that permitted ZZEE the permission to construct, own, operate the new plant on the outskirts of Hwange town, the project encompasses facility of roughly 15km of an 88 (132) Kv double lynx line from the proposed thermal plant to the existing ZPC Hwange 330/88Kv/33Kv substation.

President Mnangagwa administered a tour of the project with Cabinet officials in July 2020 where he affirmed sanguinity that Matabeleland Northern Province was steadied to steer in the socio-economic transformation of Zimbabwe through enterprises such as electricity generation and water projects. Energy efficiency is a major enterprise interest and by 2023, Zimbabwe is targeting to be a net exporter of power with considerable new power projects in Matabeleland North anticipated to have been completely carried out.

“As you can see, we are working on the 13km high voltage power line linking us with ZPC,” let out project Public Relations Manager – Bob Wang.

“We have done almost 80% of the job and we are only left with 13 intermediate polls.

“After this, we will start connecting wires and our target is to complete this within the next month or two. We need power connection from ZPC to enable us to start trial testing of our plant. We will do this testing exercise for a month to allow adjustment of our equipment and thereafter we can start feeding power to the national grid. We want to start with the first 25MW unit.”

ZZEE is a subsidiary of the Zimbabwe ZhongXin Coking Company (ZZCC), a cooperative investment project between Qualisave Mineral Resources of Zimbabwe and Yuxia ZhongXin Coking Company of China.

The formation of the plant began in February 2019 with capital injection of $9.99 million and the whole construction was scheduled to take three years. Upon the completion, the power plant will absorb 300,000 tones of coal annually and ZZCC has correlated to the Government for a Coal Special Grant (CSG) in order to relish thrifts of scale once the corporation begins producing coal to support its operations.

Wang explained as the project widens, the company would enlist more local engineers as part of its job creation drive, expanding that banking on émigré skills was costly.

“We want to create more jobs for Zimbabwean technicians to work here,” he told. “This is also because the cost of having Chinese technicians coming to work here is so high. We want locals to take up these jobs going forward.”

The new power plant is among the major capital investment projects being carried out in Matabeleland North province whose culmination was adversely influenced by outbreak of Covid-19. The pandemic laden procurement of key raw materials and the travel agreements for expatriate architects.

For New Africa Business News (NABN) Abdul Rahman Bangura Reports,  Africa Correspondent