ZIMBABWE’S Electricity Act, which establishes the Zimbabwe Electricity Regulatory Commission, is archaic and has significant gaps on addressing the country’s power outages.
The Act fails to address the urgent need for infrastructure modernisation and expansion and overlooks the crucial issue of tariff setting for the financial viability of power projects among other gaps.
This is contained in a report tabled in Parliament by the Portfolio Committee on Energy and Power Development.
“In addition, the Act lacks detailed provisions to promote the adoption of renewable sources such as solar and wind and it also does not address the issue of tariff setting that affects the financial viability of power generation projects,” the report, produced after a visit to some of the power stations, read.
“The committee also noted the Act enforcement measures for harsher penalties that were imposed for vandalism and theft.”
Zimbabweans are enduring rolling electricity outages lasting many hours per day due to depressed generation capacity.
As of yesterday, the country was generating 1 251 megawatts (MW) split as 1 000MW at Hwange, 185MW at Kariba, while independent power producers were contributing 66,94MW.
Kariba has installed capacity of 1 050MW.
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The parliamentary committee said Zimbabwe was not producing enough electricity and has no bankable strategies in place to boost generation.
“Zesa management cited that as a result of the climatic shift that has negatively impacted the water levels at the largest man-made lake, dam levels have been dramatically reduced, affecting the quantity of electricity produced by hydropower facilities,” the report read.
“Zimbabwe Power Company pointed out that the outdated infrastructure at the Kariba and Hwange power plants, which were built approximately three and six decades ago, respectively, were posing operational issues.”
The theft of power cables, transformers and other equipment, as well as the vandalism of infrastructure like power lines and substations further added to the country’s electricity challenges.
“They said these illicit activities cause service delays, financial losses and increased maintenance expenses for ZETDC [Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company].
“Furthermore, ZETDC stated that it is working on how to replace copper wires that are attracting criminals and that there are rumours that the theft and vandalism are an inside job, but there is no proof to support this,” the report said.
Zimbabwe’s bad debtor record has also stalled financing of power projects, the parliamentarians said.
They also raised concern about the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority’s independence in determining tariff structures in line with Zesa Holdings objectives.
“Additionally, the shortage of foreign currency to service power project obligations and the ongoing brain drain in the energy sector pose significant challenges.”
