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Tinashe Makichi : Business Reporter

The African Development Bank has completed the $10,5 million refurbishment of the Hwange Ash Plant under the Zimbabwe Multi-Donor Trust Fund. The operationalisation of the refurbished plant has a positive impact on the residents of Hwange as it is expected to improve the provision of adequate and reliable power supply in an environmentally sound manner.The investment made towards the Ash Plant is part of AFDB’s phase one project that entails rehabilitation of key power sector assets in the generation, transmission and distribution systems.

Zimfund manager, Emmanuel Nzabanita told The Herald Business yesterday that the refurbishment of the plant is now complete and expected to start operations this week.

“The Ash plant will start operating this week. We are happy that the plant is now fully automated and the output is expected to be huge.

“Rehabilitation of the Hwange Ash Pant will ensure environmentally sensitive operations of the Hwange Power station. Hwange uses about 7 000 tonnes of coal per day and when burnt there is a lot of ash produced,” said Mr Nzabanita.

“When mixed with water the ash turns into sludge. It is necessary to handle that waste so that it does not flow to the nearest lowest point,” said Mr Nzabanita.

Successful completion of the Hwange Ash plant upgrade comes after Government accessed funding from the African Development Bank to revamp its power infrastructure system.

AfDB which is a multilateral development finance institution mobilised funds from donor countries through the ZimFund established in May 2010 for the purpose of contributing to the recovery and development of Zimbabwe.

An Indian firm, Indure (Pvt) Limited, won the tender to undertake the rehabilitation work at the Hwange Power Station Ash Plant, beating two other bidders, Macawber Beekay of India and Hamon J&C Engineering of South Africa.

The ash plant upgrade and rehabilitation strategy comprised the refurbishment of the slurry pump, ash pumps, sluicing water pumps, booster pumps, bilge pumps and overflow sump pumps and cabling from substation to equipment skids, control cabling between substation control room to the ash plant control room at a cost of about $10 million.

These discharge lines will contribute to the increased availability of generating units and reduce the negative environmental impacts of the plant.

“People in Hwange are generally happy with the progress made on the plant considering that ash used to be removed manually sometimes.

“What’s left is some paintings and minor facelift but major works were done including removal of old equipment replacing with new ones,” said Mr Nzabanita.