Byo, Zesa in $87m Indian funded deal

via Byo, Zesa in $87m Indian funded deal – NewZimbabwe 04/02/2016

THE Bulawayo City Council has sealed an agreement with Zimbabwe Power Company to draw water from Khami Dam for the generation of electricity at the Bulawayo Thermal Power Station.

The project will be financed through an $87 million credit line facility secured from the Export- Import Bank of India.

The deal will see the power utility increasing power generation capacity at the station from 30MW TO 90MW.

Khami dam, which was decommissioned in 1988, is full to capacity with raw sewage from the southern parts of the city.

In a letter to the local authority, the power generation utility said it will rehabilitate the water treatment plant at the dam and also construct a pipeline to the power station.

The project entails replacing the existing ten chain grate boilers by two new Circulation Fluidised Bed Combustion (CFBC) boiler units (2x45MW). These new boilers will require 11 mega litres (ML) of processed water every day in order to achieve the required electricity generation capacity.

“We hereby apply for water supply facility whereby Bulawayo City Council supplies eleven 11 ML of raw water to Bulawayo Power Station to satisfy the new boilers’ requirement. Engagement between ZPC and BCC at a technical level have been held and the proposed solution is to draw water from Khami Dam.

“Under the proposal, ZPC rehabilitates the Khami Water Treatment Plant and installs a new pipeline of adequate capacity from Khami Dam to Bulawayo Power Station. ZPC would then recover the cost of these works through a structured cost recovery system to be agreed upon by both parties,” reads the letter, in part.

Once completed, ZPC stands to be of more benefit to the Bulawayo community as it will provide more employment opportunities and also “enable the City to enhance service delivery through channelling treated water to other areas needing treated water”.

Council resolved to allow ZPC to rehabilitate the Khami Treatment Works as per their request and that a Water Supply Agreement that will be beneficial to both Parties be drafted and signed and should cover aspects of cost recovery as requested by ZPC.