TENDAI BHEBE IN BULAWAYO
Government is considering decommissioning the 72-year-old Bulawayo Power Station as the plant is now beyond repair, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Gloria Magombo has said.
The plant is one of the oldest in the country having been commissioned between 1947 and 1957 with an installed capacity of 120MW.
It was initially run by the Municipality of Bulawayo but was later taken over by power utility, ZESA.
“It’s old infrastructure [Bulawayo Power Station]. You can’t get more out of it and it needs to be decommissioned and a new plant built there. We are looking at that option,” Magombo said at the Zimbabwe Smart Cities and Rural Connect conference held in Bulawayo last week.
Her remarks come as the Bulawayo City Council and ZESA are embroiled in legal battles over the ownership of the power station with the local authority claiming that the power utility was legally its tenant.
Magombo said the ownership issue was being addressed and a system has been put in place.
“I think we just need to be updated on where they are because we have engaged the local government and all the other relevant parties and there have been a number of meetings to resolve that issue,” she said.
Over the years, due to ageing plant equipment, the Bulawayo Power Station has lost its generation capacity.
Its output has dropped to around 30MW per day. But most of the days the power plant does not generate power due to operational constraints.
In 2015, the Government secured the initial funding pledge of US$87m from the India Exim Bank to be used towards the repowering project with an additional US$23m package later secured to make the total funding package of US$110m.
However, reaching financial closure and finalisation of tender processes and contract signing have dragged over the past years resulting in delays in implementing the project.
In 2018, the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority announced in a public notice that it had received an application from the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC), a power generation unit of ZESA for an amendment of the electricity generation licence of the power station to be extended by 20 years from 2024.
The licence was also to enable the entity to produce 120MW with 90MW to be fed into the national grid.
However, residents, through the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association and council objected to the application saying they were the owners of the power station.
