Padenga applies for power generation licence Padenga Holdings

Padenga Holdings

Thandiwe Katinhimure, Business Reporter
LISTED crocodile skin producer and marketer, Padenga Holdings has applied to the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) for a power generation licence to set up 0.0336 megawatts solar plant in Kariba.

The proposed solar photovoltaic plant to be situated at Padenga’s crocodile farm, is expected to generate electricity largely for the firm’s consumption.

“The purpose of the generation facilities is for own consumption. Although the power plant is entirely for own consumption, it will be connected to the national grid through the Charara 11kilovolts feeder,” said Zera in a statement.

Due to power generation constraints presently existing in the country, the Government has invited Independent Power Producers (IPPs) including local companies and industries to invest in power generation to promote industrial activity.

Since 2010, the energy regulatory authority has licenced 25 IPPs projects including small hydro and biomass power stations and a limited number of them having taken off.

Last year, Zera chief executive officer Engineer Gloria Magombo announced that the regulator would be tough on IPPs that were failing to achieve set milestones.

She is on record saying Zera will withdraw licences for IPPs that have failed to come up with quarterly reports on their milestones.

Some of the IPPs have been accused of holding onto the licences for speculative purposes.

In 2016, Zera withdrew five licences from IPPs that had failed to come up with integrated energy resources plans.

Some of the IPPs are already operational and have been contributing power to the national grid.

These include Hippo Valley and Triangle that have a generating capacity of 33MW and 45MW respectively.

Other small IPPs that are operational include Border Timbers Duru, Nyamingura, Pungwe A and Green Fuel.

The contribution of IPPs to the national grid was presently minimal and is expected to increase when big power generation expansion projects come on stream this year.

Zimbabwe, which has five power stations, produces half of its peak demand of 2 200MW but the power utility Zesa is undertaking projects to increase capacity at Hwange Thermal and Kariba South Hydro.

Last December, the Kariba South expansion project’s first unit which was feeding 150MW into the national grid was commissioned by the Government.

The project, which was undertaken by Chinese state-owned hydro-power engineering and construction company, Sinohydro started in September 2014, as part of Zim-Asset, under the Infrastructure and Utilities Cluster, with a view of increasing power generation by 300MW.

As of Thursday last week, the Zimbabwe Power Company indicated that electricity generation by the country was 1 056MW. — @thandyfeminine

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