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CALEDONIA Mining Corporation which on Monday switched on its 12,2 MW Power Plant at its Blanket Mine in Gwanda, has joined the league of producers of clean energy in Zimbabwe. Generation of solar energy is in line with the Government’s quest to produce clean energy as it takes measures to meet the global climate-change adaptation and mitigation commitments. 

The solar plant at Blanket Mine will address the challenges of load shedding which were impacting negatively on the mine’s production. 

CALEDONIA Mining Corporation

The mine authorities said during the outages or low voltages they used to rely on diesel generators which are very expensive to run thereby increasing production costs. This is now a thing of the past following the switching on of the solar plant which according to the Caledonia chief executive officer Mr Mark Learnmonth, will drastically reduce the cost of energy. 

The company said now that it is guaranteed reliable power supply at the mine, it intends to boost its production capacity to 80 000 ounces of gold per year. 

Caledonia has joined companies such as Centragrid which is already producing solar energy at its Solar Plant in Nyabira, Mashonaland West and Solgas Energy which is also producing solar energy at its plant at Cross Mabale in Matabeleland North province. 

Solgas Energy has said it plans to establish solar plants in all the provinces to complement Government efforts to improve power generation.  A number of private companies have been given licences to produce solar energy across the country and it is our fervent hope that the companies are working on the projects. 

Big companies such as Mimosa Mine in Zvishavane and Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) in Bulawayo have announced that work on their plants is already underway. 

Zimbabwe like the rest of the Sadc region is experiencing subdued energy generation hence the need for more companies to invest in the generation of solar energy.  

Pretoria Portland Cement

Government has implored more companies to invest in the energy sector so that the country is not just guaranteed adequate electricity but produces even surplus for export. 

Energy is key to the achievement of vision 2030 and we want to commend companies that have already heeded the Government’s call to invest in the energy sector and urge others that are yet to come on board to do so. 

Vision 2030

Zimbabwe like the rest of Africa has abundant sunshine throughout the year and companies should take advantage of this God-given resource to invest in renewable energy.