via ZPC seeks approval to sell 80MW | The Herald 26 August 2014
The Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) is seeking regulatory approval to sell 80MW of electricity to large off takers for a certain period in order to raise additional funding for the expansion of Kariba South power plant.
Chinese firm, Sino Hydro, won the contract to expand the country’s second largest power station by 300 megawatts. The project will cost about $355 million, with Government supplementing 10 percent of the total cost, which is about $35 million.
A ground-breaking ceremony to mark commencement of construction is expected to be held next month.
The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) said the proposal by ZPC had been made in terms of section 40 of the Electricity Act.
“Notice is hereby given that Zera has received an application from ZPC to sell 80MW of power at a load factor of 50 percent to large consumers,” it said in a statement.
“The sale of the 80MW capacity will be done under a power purchase agreement between ZPC and large off takers to raise additional funds for the Kariba South Extension project.”
Zimbabwe is currently facing power shortages as national power demand at peak periods is estimated at 2 200MW against available generation of about 1 200MW with the shortfall being imported from regional power utilities.
But Government, through ZPC, has embarked on several projects to bridge the power deficit through expanding existing power stations and building new ones. For example plans are also in place to add two units at Hwange Thermal Power Station, which would have a combined generation capacity of 600 megawatts.
Zimbabwe is also working with the Zambian government to build the Batoka Gorge power station, which is expected to generate 1 600MW of electricity to be shared equally by the two countries when complete. — New Ziana.
COMMENTS
I am a bit confused about the Kariba South Bank capability of generating the required power because a few weeks ago a former Zesa employee now running his own consultation company in power generation and technology stated that only about 40 mwatts would be achieved with the rest being lost in transmission lines and switching networks.
Who is telling the truth then? @Markton-please enlighten me because you made some comments without quantifying and qualifying them but only figures on voltages and referring to the so-called past studies.These past studies you mentioned were not highlighted in the Hatch Study done by this Canadian company on the Kariba South Bank.
The application is a good idea if it can result in more power being added to our national grid in the near future provided the intended project is viable.
As usual. The blind leading the blind. Walking backwards to darkness. First it was gonna be a south African group. Then Italian. Then Chinese. Then it was Malaysian. Then Iranian. Back to Chinese. Talk of musical power stations !!!!!
a reply to Mixed race:
when u design a power system there are more things to consider to deliver yo power efficiently.
let me answer u by giving an analogy to simplify things. Harare has water problems and if we duplicate motton-jeffry water works the problem will remain coz u will not have duplicated the water pipes to hre, u will not duplicated the storage tanks and associated waterpunps there in Hre. So the capacity to deliver water remains restricted.
The same with power systems, u need a wholistic approach. For power to be delivered efficiently there is need to upgrade the 3 Lines from kariba p/stn. building a 4th Line may not be the solution as the issue is to reduce the transmission and distribution costs. pliz be advised that overall tx costs are about 17% and dx costs will average around 50% of total losses.
the problem in Zim is that politicians think they know it all.
@Mambo-thank you and I must add that what you have said is what should happen in a well planned project because it would be useless to plan for generation without taking into account how to distribute that generated energy.
You are 100% about politicians thinking that they know it all.I used to deal with them a lot before I retired and in most cases I would tell them not to promise results of any of my project to the public until I tell them to do that,otherwise they are good in putting the cart in front of the horse.
From where did the 2200 mw figure originate? Was this 12-14 years ago when zim had a functioning economy? Most likely!
Most of the power currently being generated is being lost to thieves, freeloaders, and poe-people. If the ones who cannot, willnot, or neverwill pay a fair tariff for electricity are eliminated, the utility probably has excess generating and distributing capacity. To generate more electricity which will not be paid for is the very height of economic stupidity. As for a fair price for electricity, in the u.s. the average is around usd 0.15 and rising. Of course it varies geographically with the high side being upwards of usd 0.36 in noncontiguous areas.
If the government wants to give something away, it should first buy it and pay for it.
Utilities are of the first importance for a sound functioning economy. They must be made to function well or nothing else will either. Remember Africa, it you buy it you must pay for it as well!
Kariba South ext was well planned in the 1950’s. for your info the tunnels for the expansion were dug in 1957 to cater for 2 Units. what the chinese are going to do is simply install equipment in halls underground already in place. the only major civil works is opening up the “Intakes” so that water goes to the new turbines as well.
The problem is implementation as Govt’s approach one size fits all but with engineering it a different thing.
The problem is no-one has thought of getting that genrated power efficiently to load centres where it is required. Govt has lots of experts together with the crop of engineers in Zesa should have advised them properly.
Do you know both Zesa & Govt failed to raise 15% of total project costs as required by the agreement with the chinese, and they ended up forming a new company Kariba Hydro and transferred the power station assets to the new company so that Kariba Hydro use the assets as colateral when borrowing. If Kariba Hydro fails to repay the loan those assets that include old generators can be auctioned. I see Zesa(Zetdc) failing to pay Kariba Hydro as they have failed in the past to pay Eskom, ZRA etc and once Kariba Hydro defaults it means trouble. what a mess
I could not reply to you @Mambo because the south of the country had no internet because the thieves had cut fibre optic cables between Gweru and Harare.Our internet is so badly planned that all the eggs are placed in one basket so when that basket falls all the eggs break.This is the problem of over centralising organisations instead of decentralising.Surely,Zimbabwe could use other neighbouring countries for telecomms links not to depend on one central outlet to international servers.
I read your last correspondence with a deep sense of complete anger because we should never fool around with energy projects,otherwise our dear country will remain underdeloped as compared to our neighbours.I have also witnessed recently that the thieves are stealing earth and neutral transmission lines leaving only the live wires.This to me its an indication that those who are stealing these wires are people with the full knowledge of how Zesa transmission lines are wired and energised.I also suspect that these are the same guys who cut fibre optic cables hanging on Zesa lines.What worries me is that Zesa staff just switched on the phase which had tripped without repairing the missing earth and neutral wires,meaning that households with these wires missing have no continous earth from the transformer unit.What happens next if one of the live wires falls to the ground?Those who have done basic electricity will know what I mean.
mixed-race:
i can tell u live gwr. One thing u need to understand is there has never been synchronised investment in Zim. one wonders how gwr cud be cut off completely when we have 4 fibres running btwn Hre and Byo/Plumtree ie telone, nrz, econet and zesa. So really they shud use a system that switches to another healthy alternative when a fault occurs. surely we cud have networked the whole country and only leave 1 or 2 optic fibre cables btwn Hre and Byo/Plumtree for redundancy purposes though one optic fibre has enough capacity for all we need to network telephones, mobiles, banks, computers, nrz signal etc.
Zesa fibre runs on top of high voltage towers and thieves have no chance to steal it.
As for the theft of copper, we have to blame the Govt which licenses them. If these licenses are done away with, this will stop. Fun as it looks Govt owns Zesa and then they license pple who steal from their company.
As for the nation to have adequate energy/zesa we shud be looking at a period of 15 – 20 yrs otherwise it cud be more as it looks like nothing was obtained from China. Newspapers were awash with China mega deals and all seems to have gone quiet now. Zim has signed so many MOU’s but papers are now covered with dust. The problem is vanhu vanokanganwa chezuro nehope
latest on Kariba. Kariba Hydro failed to get the Loans even with co-lateral and they now want to sell 80 MW to Nambia when the country is still in darkness in order to raise that 15% for kariba ext. Wud have thot they shud sell that power internally to mines and the few industries that remain. Is this not killing further our industries. why ?? why ??
When I said earlier that I supported the sell of that 80 megawatts,I was under the impression that this would be sold to our mines like the platinum complex.
The direct effects of diverting this energy will mean more load shedding thus killing our industrial operations further leading to increased company shut downs.
The answer to your-Why? It is because we Zimbabweans always think we are more educated than the rest of Africa when we really lack common sense and wisdom.Education without these two perimeters is completely useless.I pray that one day common logic will govern our leaders.