THE Zimbabwe Electricity Regulatory Authority (Zera) has granted Hwange Electricity Supply Company a licence to construct, operate and maintain Hwange Power Station Stage III for the purpose of generating and supplying electricity to consumers in the region.
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Zera chief executive officer Gloria Magombo in a statement yesterday said the licence allowed the company to supply electricity to any transmission, distribution or supply licencee who purchases electricity for resale and with the approval of authority to any consumer.
“Generation licence No GC0032 issued in terms of Section 4 (e) of the Energy Regulatory Authority Act Chapter 13:23 of 2011 as read with section 42 of the Electricity Act Chapter 13:19 Act no.4 of 2002 hereinafter referred to as “the Act”
“The conduct of the above –named licencee under this licensee under this license is subjected to the conditions as outlined below or later revisions to these conditions as are approved by the Zera hereinafter referred to as the authority, the terms as set out in section 47 of the Act and any other amendments to the relevant legislation,” Magombo said.
According to Zera’s recently published annual report for 2013, the authority said it received applications and licenced two independent power producers in an effort to bridge the gap between supply and demand. Zera said the producers — Hytoric Enterprises t/a Southern Energy with a capacity of 600 megawatts (MW) and Kupinga Renewable Energy with a capacity of 1,5 MW — had a combined output of 601,5MW.
Zera said it had reviewed the licence for China Africa Sunlight Energy Company from 400MW to 600MW.
The country has been battling intermittent power shortages as demand continued to exceed supply with Zesa currently generating about half of the national requirement of 2 200MW. This has led to increased load shedding.
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According to Zera, the Kariba Hydro Power Station plant situated along Zambezi River generated an average of 569 MW while Hwange Power Station, a coal fired plant produced an average of 436MW in the past year.
Zera said the other small thermal power stations contributed a total of about 58MW with Harare Power Station contributing 16MW, Bulawayo Power Station 20MW and Munyati Power Station 22MW against a combined dependable capacity of 100MW. According to Zera the country’s operational IPPs have an installed capacity of 102MW which are largely co-generation and small hydro technologies and these are Triangle, Hippo Valley, Chisumbanje, Border Timbers and Nyangani Renewable Energy.
