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Minister Samuel Undenge

Tendai Mugabe Harare Bureau
THE government will phase out electric geysers and replace them with solar powered water heating geysers from January next year as one of the measures to save electricity, Energy and Power Development Minister Samuel Undenge said yesterday.

Addressing delegates attending the launch of a Solar Water Heating Programme in Harare yesterday, Undenge said the country had approximately 300,000 electric geysers consuming at least 300 megawatts of power.

“We want to embark on this programme starting January next year,” he said. “Of course replacing the geysers will take some time. We’ll not immediately ban them but will let the programme roll on.

“We envisage that over a period of five years, we’ll have completed replacing the 300,000 electric geysers we have in the country.”

Undenge said the solar water geysers would be manufactured locally, but he would not say who will cover the cost of replacing the electrical geysers.

“It’s my intention to have all the solar geysers manufactured locally,” he said.

“This will create employment for our people and enable us to add value to our resources in line with Zim-Asset objectives.”

Undenge said Cabinet took a decision to increase the use solar of energy adding that Zimbabwe was privileged to have at least 3,000 hours of sunshine per year.

“Zimbabwe has an enormous solar potential, which if exploited can supply approximately 10,000 megawatts of electrical energy per year,” he said.

He said the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority had licensed solar power Independent Power Producers with a total installed capacity of 155 megawatts at various stages of development.

He said another 300 megawatts from projects in Gwanda, Insukamini and Munyati were still to be decided by the tender board.

“However, it has now been two years and no tender has been awarded due to bureaucratic processes at the State Procurement Board,” he said.

“No-one has been more frustrated by this delay than myself.

“I’ve accordingly sought the authority of Cabinet to access the technical and financial capacities of the tendering companies and make recommendations to Cabinet for its decision so that the projects can be implemented as soon as possible.”

Undenge said diversifying the country’s energy resources was beneficial for the nation’s energy security.

He said the solar water heating project would be benchmarked on the experiences of other countries such Africa, Brazil, South Korea, Lebanon, China and Egypt that had implemented it.