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Felex Share Senior Reporter—
Zesa Holdings’ power supply capacity got a 100-megawatt boost last week following the commissioning of the Dema Emergency Power Plant. The project is one of the short-term initiatives being implemented by Government to alleviate power shortages. The 200MW diesel plant in Dema being spearheaded by Sakunda Holdings, is expected to generateanother 100MW in the next few weeks.

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Zesa Holdings spokesperson Mr Fullard Gwasira yesterday confirmed the Dema project had come on stream. “I confirm that the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company has started receiving electricity from Dema,” he said.

“We started receiving the supplies last week and commissioning is in progress. During this commissioning stage we are getting up to 100MW.” The Office of the President and Cabinet is supervising the project that among other initiatives is key in driving the Government’s economic blueprint, Zim-Asset.

Cabinet granted Zesa Holdings the nod to have an emergency plant as a stopgap measure after the country experienced acute load-shedding at the end of last year. The outages, caused by the declining water levels at Kariba Dam, saw residents going for up to 18 hours without electricity.

On the Dema project, Zesa will pay $83 million — about $7 million monthly — for the 536GWh/year to be supplied. Mr Gwasira said the project will be in place while big expansion projects like Kariba South (300MW) and Hwange Power Station (600MW) materialise.

“Dema is one of the many interventions taken by Government to ensure there is security of electricity supply,” he said. “It is our view and target that with these measures, load shedding will be a thing of the past. This is being done while we wait for our long-term projects to come to fruition.”

Sakunda Holdings will be leasing generators from Aggreko, the world’s leading temporary power generation company. The Dema project will be complemented by another 120MW to come from the Mutare Peaking Power Plant.

The plant is also a priority under Zim-Asset and the contractor, Helcraw Electrical (Pvt) Ltd, is already on the ground doing pre-commencement works. The power from Dema, which is fed directly into the national grid, will be post-paid with a 45-day payment period.

Other external sources of power Zesa has at the moment are pre-paid and the contracts in place are non-firm, meaning power is given to Zimbabwe when it is available. Countries such as Mozambique, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia have gone the route of emergency power plants, in most cases renting diesel-powered generators to alleviate power shortages.

Other quick-win projects being carried out by Government include repowering of the Bulawayo Thermal Station where Zimbabwe has already secured a line of credit valued at $87 million from the Government of India. The Harare re-powering project will cost $70 million with 85 percent of the cost being funded by India Exim Bank.