Green Fuel eyes ZESA deal

BUSINESS REPORTER

Ethanol producer, Green Fuel, says it will sign a memorandum of understanding with power utility Zesa to sell excess electricity generated from its plant in Chisumbanje.

Green Fuel’s laboratory manager Aleck Mupariwa told journalists during a tour of the plant last week that the company wants to sell excess electricity to ZESA.

“Our turbines have capacity to generate 18MW. Currently we are generating 7MW. We are waiting for an MoU with ZESA to be able to put power to the national grid,” Mupariwa said.

The push to sell excess power comes as the company is projecting an output of 80m litres of ethanol this year from 65m last year. Next year, the target is 90m litres, Mupariwa said.

The company has put over 12 hectares under sugarcane at its two estates. The sugar cane is grown throughout the year and is harvested after 12 months.

Mupariwa said 6,000 tonnes of cane is crushed daily. The two outputs are juice and fibre. Fibre is used as fuel in the boiler as fuel for steam and power generation. Juice is concentrated to mash. Yeast is added to mash for fermentation with about 35 hours required to exhaust sugars to ethanol.

Green Fuel manufactures anhydrous ethanol from sugarcane. The ethanol is blended with petrol.

The ethanol product is a joint venture partnership between Agricultural and Rural Development Authority and Billy Rautenbach’s companies—Ratings and Macdom.

Green Fuel says US$300m has been injected into the project which made its first   profit last year after nearly a decade in operation.

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