The Zimbabwean government is boosting electricity generation to keep up with increasing demand and ensure power shortages do not constrict future economic growth, a senior government official has said.
In a press conference on Wednesday, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development Gloria Magombo said several power generation projects are coming on stream and expected to substantially increase the domestic electricity supply.
When all generating units are efficiently operating, the country has a domestic supply shortfall of 300 MW, which rises to 400 MW when some units are down.
Excluding imports, the deficit increases to 500 MW, a huge gap that the government wants to close to avoid the economy falling prey to power shortages.
"The country is developing, and developing very fast, and this means we have to provide the power to sustain this growth," Magombo said.
"Unfortunately, power projects have a long gestation period, but most of what we have lined up will fortunately not take that long to come to fruition," Magombo added.
A major ongoing power project is the construction of the 1.5-billion-U.S.-dollar Hwange Seven and Eight units by China's Sinohydro, which will add 600 MW to the national grid.
Magombo said completing the Hwange expansion project would substantially increase the domestic electricity supply. Still, with demand growing in the range of over seven percent annually, additional generating capacity is urgently needed to keep pace.
Work on the projects, which will be done in phases, is expected to start next year and be completed by 2025 at the earliest.
Editor: Kelly
