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NewsDay

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Zesa needs $458m to buy coal

Business
POWER utility Zesa Holdings’ generation subsidiary says it requires more than $458 million this year to buy coal and operate a diesel plant to augment power deficit after the country’s main power plant at Kariba was handicapped due to lower dam water levels, officials said.

POWER utility Zesa Holdings’ generation subsidiary says it requires more than $458 million this year to buy coal and operate a diesel plant to augment power deficit after the country’s main power plant at Kariba was handicapped due to lower dam water levels, officials said.

MTHANDAZO NYONI

According to a paper presented at a consultative meeting in Bulawayo recently, the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) said it requires $124 million to purchase coal and $8 million for Kariba water. It requires $22 million for Hwange diesel plant and $242 million for payroll costs, administration, depreciation and to pay Zimbabwe Electricity Regulatory Authority regulatory fees, among other expenses.

Coal

In 2014 and 2015, the total expenditure was $498 million and $458 million respectively.

ZPC is proposing a 22% increase in power costs from 5,06 cents per kilowatt hour to 6,64 cents per kilowatt hour on sale to Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC).

ZETDC wants a 49% tariff hike to 14,69 cents per kilowatt hour which it says is cost reflective and necessary to augment emergency power imports. Zesa has recently started to import 300MW from South Africa’s Eskom to supplement local generation.

However, the business community and farmers organisations have strongly objected to the proposals which they say will drive up the cost of production.

ZPC executive assistant Douglas Chingoka who presented the paper said 3 million tonnes of coal were required to meet the targeted output and coal costs for small thermal stations take into account the need to transport the coal by rail or road.

He said Kariba Power Station will need 11 billion cubic metres of water at an average price of $0.000681 per cubic metre.

“Water costs also include dam maintenance. Diesel will be used for commissioning of units after planned and forced outages, as well as for stabilising flames. Costs of some inputs have significantly increased since the last tariff increase in 2011,” he said.

He said without a tariff increase to support the increasing input costs, the company might fail to generate efficiently as some maintenance works would be compromised.

Chingoka said the company was actively in search of capital for new generation projects and a cost reflective tariff was key to attracting such capital.

He said ZPC’s project plan was slated to increase capacity by 1330MW by 2020.