The Shona have a saying that goes ‘chakanaka chakanaka…’ which seeks to convey that a good thing is a good thing, regardless of who did it or their motivations. I know we justifiably have gripes with our government over various issues but on the Hwange Thermal plant expansion, they did good.
I know I sound like a caveman to the climate conscious out there. How could I say the expansion of a coal-powered station was a good move? Well, let me explain.
Zimbabwe does not have the luxury to shun coal at a time when our electricity access rate is only 62%. That means 38% of our population does not have access to electricity.
I know what you’re thinking, we should strive to rectify that using other sources of electricity. That would be ideal, I agree. However, that’s where I would say it’s a luxury to overlook the coal we have in spades.
That is because climate change has affected rain patterns, leading to droughts affecting water levels at Kariba, our hydro-power station. That was coupled with mismanagement and poor maintenance schedules and the result was falling production over the years.
Some independent power producers (IPPs) were licensed but their contribution is still low. Which means if Hwange had not been expanded, the decline of Kariba would have been catastrophic.
Hwange to the rescue
The stats are in, Hwange accounted for 75.4% of the total electricity generated in the first quarter of 2024. Kariba chipped in with 19.6% whilst IPPs contributed 5.1%.
This is why the situation wasn’t as bad as it was leading up to Unit 7 and Unit 8 at Hwange. You may remember that we would get power cuts every single day and a lucky few had access for just a few hours in the middle of the night.
We were told it was because of the low water levels at Kariba and we were all following the Zambezi River Authority’s reports hoping reprieve was around the corner. Unfortunately, the water situation is still dire but this time around we aren’t feeling it as much because Hwange is picking up the slack.
The country produced about 2249.87GWh and imported 505.4GWh to supplement that in Q1 2024.
Which just goes to show that betting on hydro would have turned out badly for us. The ultimate goal should be to diversify. We should not rely on just one source as this burnt us before.
We saw how it played out in developed Germany too. The US, under Trump told the Germans that their reliance on Russian gas would bite them where it hurts and that turned out to be prophetic.
The world is going green
Some of the challenges we face in relying on coal is that we won’t get much help in funding coal-based projects. The developed world won’t fund any coal projects.
As a result, some of the companies that provided machinery and parts no longer do coal stuff. That means it will be hard to build out our coal-powered infrastructure.
I guess that’s where the look-east-and west policy comes in handy. It is the Chinese that helped us fund the Hwange expansion, something that no Western country would have done.
That’s unfortunate though because we saw how Germany turned to coal when they couldn’t or rather, wouldn’t purchase Russian gas. Little old Zimbabwe’s consumption is but a footnote, a tiny drop in coal consumption globally, even if we turned to coal for 100% of all electricity generation needs.
The biggest coal producers include Australia at number 2, Russia at number 3 and the US at number 4.
The biggest coal consumers include China at number 1, the US at number 3 and Japan at number 4.
The plan is to move away from coal but as long as it helps their economies thrive, these countries are not afraid to lean on coal for the time being.
Hence why I think Zimbabwe should consider solar, revamping Kariba and building out our other hydro-stations whilst also letting coal fill in until that’s all set up.
But that’s just me. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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