via Govt names 300MW solar tender winners – DailyNews Live 3 MARCH 2014
Zimbabwe has awarded the 300 megawatt (MW) solar tender to three companies, including China Jiangxi International Cooperation (CJIC), Intratrek Zimbabwe (Private) Limited (Intratrek) and ZTE Corporation (ZTE).
The development comes as the country has been grappling with increased power outages and which have been classified a potential security threat.
Although CJIC was the first to be named among the winners, Harare has said the other two could participate in the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) project “on condition of successful price negotiation, land acquisition and fulfillment of other technical aspects of the tender”.
“At (a) meeting… held on February 13, 2014, the State Procurement Board noted… the critical shortage of power and its negative effects on the growth of the economy as well as its potential threat to national security,” Cledwyn Nyanhete, the board’s accounting officer said, in a recent letter to ZPC managing director Noah Gwariro, adding the matter was urgent.
“Accordingly… the accounting officer should engage the two technically compliant bidders namely Intratrek… and ZTE,” he said.
According to documents seen by businessdaily last week, the Chinese firms and Intratrek have commited to a funding model or mechanism based on an 80:20 percent ratio and 100 percent for the later.
What this means is the foreign investors will bring in about 80 to 90 percent, while Gwariro’s company will have to make the difference.
The ZPC boss was unreachable for comment on this, and many other issues surrounding the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) processes also including delivery timetables of the mega-million project.
Wicknell Chivayo, the Intratrek MD, said although his company had not received any official communication on the issue, they were obviously elated and would “do anything to suport government programmes such as ZimAsset”.
“At my level, I am not expected to speculate or say anything bordering on conjecture. But given the chance, we are proud to be part of the brilliant and people-orientated ZimAsset initiative that seeks to provide quick-wins in sectors such as energy,” he said.
As a company which first brought the solar farm concept and project to Zimbabwe in 2013, their vision was to “ameliorate the power shortage and deficit” – running at 1 000-plus MW – as well as create abundant employment by 2018.
“As patriotic Zimbabweans, it is also our considered view that… anyone (in government or outside and) with puerile opposition and an imperialist position or principle, and unwilling to support ZimAsset’s implementation must be eliminated.”
To this end, the company has secured a 260 hectare piece of land in Gwanda for the construction of the project.
Intratrek hopes to harness abundant sunshine resources in Matabeleland South and pump up to 100MW into the national grid.
According to an EPC report seen by this paper late last year, Chint will partner the local company for the $248 million project due to be delivered within a year.
Under the project, the Shanghai-based behemoth — with assets worth over $30 billion — will help raise capital at a concessionary six percent interest per annum over a 12-year period.
Following the tender announcement, the parties are readying to undertake the Gwanda project where scientific studies have proven good solar radiation and are prepared to swoop on other aread.
With a 50-year life span, the Intratrek-Chint solar farms and international technology — with a 25-year guarantee — can procure electricity at $2,5 million per MW of solar power.
As China’s fourth largest private enterprise, Chint is a market leader in electric voltage distribution products that are also present in over 110 countries.
In its latest financials, the 29-year-old company had revenues of nearly $5 billion and a 40 percent share of the domestic market supply.
Globally, the Asian company also employees 29 000-plus people.
By tapping into this renewable and smart energy market, analysts say Zimbabwe could actually be able to plug the skills gap between the southern African country and its partners, and which strategies can aloso make it the solar hub of the region.
COMMENTS
Do we pay them in yuan?
What the heck do we need with a big solar plant? This is idiocy of the highest order. We have ample coal in the ground an coal is the most economic way to generate electricity. We are not Germany or Denmark where we have money to play with these things.
Industries are hampered by the need for reliable power and these turkeys want to build a big solar plan. Another big fat joke. When will these puffed up toads ever learn.
John Thomas,I think you are the Biblical “Doubting Thomas”. You believe in this day and age that coal is better than solar energy. Revisit your school books and wake up.
Solar energy is Clean and Free.Once a solar panel is in place, it generates electricity at no financial cost and without generating waste.
Unlike fossil fuels,solar power will be unlimited for as long as the sun shines.
Solar panels have comparatively low maintenance requirements because the system contains few or no moving parts.
Coal, as a fossil fuel,release hydrocarbons that mix with the atmosphere and produce greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide or pollution, including sulphur dioxide–a source of acid rain.
Pollution control costs revenue, like in China.
Like the beggar who will not drive anything except a mercedes
This is just a scam. When the sun doesn’t shine what happens when one quarter of your power goes off?
Remember the Jatropha/bio-diesel plant?
Mucha, with due respect, for China to get where they are, they had to burn fossils. Europe ,Americas it was the same story. This is the cheapest option. We need solutions now . mind you we are so small our carbon footprint is minimal. Talking about carbon footprints trading, the state is probably getting money from that and someone is pocketing it. Could have been used for microgeneration.
i believe solar is worthwhile but that political tirade by one of the tender winners raises my suspicions!!!
@Jack……jatropha, kkkkkk,it was the buzzy word but l do not think we got even a litre of diesel out of the mega million dollar plant. l had since forgotten about it, thanks mate
@mucha- you make comments without proper technical research because @J Thomas is partially correct that solar electricity generation is not as clean as you think.
How does it work in winter and at night-this will give you an idea how it contributes to pollution.At night or in winter the system uses its backup storage facilities that is either gas or batteries.These two backup facilities generate harmful gases eg chlorine gas or un-burnt methane.
You have to keep the boiler or furnace working to generate steam to power the turbine which in turn generates the required electricity.No man-made equipment is pollution free,do not be cheated by these companies.I am not sure what system they will use in Gwanda but I can guess that they will use the one with batteries backup since there is no natural gas at Gwanda.Therefore, the area will be heavily polluted with chlorine gas emitted from the charging backup batteries and these have to be changed after every 5-10 years period.Some of the output energy will be used to charge the batteries all the time,thus a bit will be lost on that backup process.
Prove me wrong if you have come across better technology in this field.Why is China having this pollution problem if they can use better generation systems?You cannot transform what God made without experiencing losses and pollution.I am a technical person but I accept our human shortcomings.
“Why is China having this pollution problem if they can use better generation systems?”
Mainly because it will many take years to build all the nuclear or other clean power stations that China needs. They know where they have to go, but it can’t be done overnight.
I dont know why people should bother to brainstorm. Nothing is going to come out of this so called solar project. Its just like the zambezi water project, zisco steel etc. Bribes have to be paid and the investors wil simply pull out. Mark my words
Yes….What a waste of arable land and bad management of the national grid. Namibia has the perfect waste land to make solar power, Zim could barter food for power, but that is also impossible with the current state of affairs.
I guess the country cannot be trusted with Nuclear power in any form, with the amount of industry lost through shutting down businesses through idiotic nationalization and indiginization there should be sufficient power from the “old colonial generators” to run every ones TV’s to watch the local political progress rubbish while sitting at home without jobs. Where is the industry that uses this power anyway ?
How huge is this storage battery that will keep the national grid running at night while there is no sun, the calculations are beyond belief.
On the other hand if the Wankie power station was run properly and didn’t have a total shutdown through a “fault” it wouldn’t ever come to this crisis point. They had six commissioned boilers and never ran more than four after repeatedly damaging them. Call in more Chinese experts, they’ll get second best at least.
I am not sure how many batteries because it depends on their boilers capacity.The theory is that you arrest sun energy then heat the fluid in the boilers to give steam which then drives the turbines which in turn generate electricity.
The storage batteries do not support the national grid but that Gwanda generating Station,without backup the power generated would fall heavily because the heat from the solar collectors would drop badly at night and in winter when we are farther away from the sun since our earth’s orbit around the sun is elliptical not circular.
What do you do with the waste material like used batteries which have toxic acids?Africa is a damping ground for all dangerous items eg batteries,old cars and cheap electrical goods.When people market their products they do not mention the adverse portions of their equipment.