BY MTHANDAZO NYONI
THE Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Limited (ZSE) has commissioned a solar plant with a generation capacity of up to 40KVA in line with its commitment to sustainable practices, the bourse’s chief executive officer Justin Bgoni has revealed.
In a statement yesterday, Bgoni said they were looking forward to annual cost savings of around US$42 000 from the switch to solar energy and the payback period is within three years.
“The overall objective of the solar project was to move towards a cleaner, affordable and reliable source of power given the need to keep trading servers continuously up,” he said.
“The ZSE has had to heavily rely on diesel-powered generators as a fallback when electricity is unavailable, a costly and environmentally unfriendly strategy,” Bgoni said. Bgoni said adopting the solar energy route was in line with their commitment to sustainable practices.
“The ZSE has been a member of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative since 2015 and in 2019 it adopted sustainability disclosure requirements in its listings requirements. In 2019, the ZSE also published principles for green and social bonds to be considered by issuers intending to raise funds for green projects,” it said.
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Zimbabwe has been, over a long period of time, experiencing a crippling power crisis which has seen industry and households sometimes going for up to 18 hours a day without electricity. In addition, rising energy costs have led many companies in the country to consider investing in solar energy.
According to Get Invest, a European programme that aims at mobilising investments in decentralised renewable energy projects, Zimbabwe has strong potential for electricity generation from hydro, solar and biomass resources. So far, only a fraction of the country’s hydro energy potential has been exploited. Solar and biomass resources also remain largely untapped.