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A month after a ground-breaking ceremony for the $3.6bn Palm River Energy and Metallurgical Special Economic Zone, which will include a 1 200-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Beitbridge, another notable energy investment is coming up.

A Chinese firm, Yuanlin Energy Investments (Yuanlin), we reported yesterday, has hired a consultant to undertake an environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) for a 600MW Kalungwizi thermal power station in Binga.

This will be a huge coal project for a district, which has attracted a number of investments in that subsector, in recent years.

We welcome the proposed project as it will breathe life into one of the country’s least developed yet resource-rich areas. If, as we hope, the project materialises, it will mean scores of local jobs, growth in incomes and improved standards of living for the community.

As most investments of this scale often do, we look forward to the company investing in new roads and other amenities or working with the Government to do so. We also expect Yuanlin to undertake corporate social responsibility investments as well — building new clinics and schools, expanding or equipping existing ones, improving food and water security and so on.

At a macro level, we see the project contributing to the attainment of national energy security after decades of shortages that are frustrating household and commercial consumers. Coal-based power plants are generally stable come rain, come drought. They just provide electricity round the clock, all year round.

For these reasons and more, we expect the ESIA to be carried out expeditiously, finding the project as not harmful to the ecology around it. In addition, we are hopeful that the project will be complementary, not harmful to its social setting. If any possible future challenges are identified, Yuanlin, the Government and the Binga community must find ways to go round them.

That is the function of an ESIA anyway, to thoroughly study the context around a proposed project, spot its possible adverse implications and craft strategies to address them as the project is implemented.
But we feel it is very important for us to note the continuing role of Chinese companies in our economy, specifically in coal-based electricity generation.

Chinese companies built Hwange Units 7 and 8, are involved at Manhize and, as we indicated earlier, are involved at the Palm River Energy and Metallurgical Project.
China also, was instrumental in expanding Kariba South, a hydropower facility.

We, as a country, would not have mobilised enough financial resources to execute the projects on our own without this very invaluable Chinese support.

The Kalungwizi project is yet another indication of the success of the Look East policy.
We, thus look forward to the completion of the ESIA for the project to enter construction and operation stages so the people of Binga and the nation a large enjoy the benefits of the investment and the energy security it will engender.