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.
13 comments
It is sad that the Chinese no longer support loans for the construction of coal power stations. At least we had pocketed units 7 & 8.
Those units have been a godsend, delayed as they were.
Zimbabwe overpaid for those power stations.
But it has to be admitted that the government did make a good decision on getting those units built but unfortunately it’s still not good enough. More needs to be done.
For instance a solution has to be urgently found for the the recently closed power stations ie bulawayo and munyati.
Either refurbish them or sell them off to companies that are able and willing to do so.
The government should avoid all these pie in the sky solutions and stick to what is known to work. So the government builds more coal fired power stations (if they have the money) and at the same time assists with policy guarantees and licenses for all the privately owned companies who are interested in investing in conventional or alternative energy solution projects in the country.
In short the government should set a reasonable maximum electricity tariff and open the door to any and all players who want to enter the game
100% agree. We overpaid as is our custom. I’m actually not sure any project will be greenlit if there is no room for inflating invoices.
The points you raised about solutions for Munyati and Bulawayo and the tariffs are huge. There, we have attainable routes. Refurbishment of Munyati and Bulawayo by the govt won’t work, selling is the best option but I think they will only resort to that if conditions deteriorate. The tariff issue will determine who is willing to take on those stations. So, the future of those plants will be similar to that of IPPs, tariffs will make or break them.
Hi Leonard & the rest of the team,
Couldn’t find a “Tips/Suggestions” tab on the site, so here I am. I think it would be useful if you’d add the “jobs” tab you have on Pindula, to this site as well. I will post this comment on a few articles for your attention.
Thanks Harmony, sounds like a good idea. We will be discussing this to work out the logistics and figure out how we would do it if we were to.
I think your thought process is very good. No. 1 is that God endowed us with this resource to utilize and utilize responsibly which we must do. No2 technology is very dynamic and we can positively deploy the coal in thermal power generation with zero CO2, COx emissions by deploying any excess Co2 generated to enhanced vegetative plant cultivation resulting in zero or negative emissions. No3 is wat you have rightfully mentioned that we cannot be forced to contribute toward neutral greenhouse gas emissions given our minute contribution to greenhouse gas emissions measured against these mighty emitter like USA, Japan, China, Russia etc. Ours is just an insignificant number and these so called developed world must reduce their emissions to catch up with our per capita levels b4 we affect our energy demand interests and energy mix by just joining the bandwagon of coal disabusers without due consideration of our needs and interests. We must just expand our coal generation capacity to even 50 000 MW until our electricity power supplies are too cheap to meter for the benefit of our national strategic economic interests
too buying goats to bother…. they going to use goat powered turbines
The government still needs to incentivise the use of solar energy in homes.Solar is becoming more and more affordable, it’s use can also reduce the load on our grid significantly.
Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, for the next 3 months, we’re likely to suffer. This schedule were load shedding begins at 5am and ends 10.30pm is biting more than frost bites 😭
The other day i was watching a youtube post from a popular science commentator. She was talking about a study relating to the suprising positive impact that bitcoin mining has had on the environment. Yes, bitcoin mining. The study gave the example of Iceland. Where there is a lot of geothermal energy. The thing is, most of the geothermal projects would not be economically viable if it were not for the extra income earned through bitcoin mining. Iceland has a small population (i imagine few people want to live in a literal deep freezer), so electricity demand is low. In the past if you built a new power plant, there was the real problem of finding customers to supply. Now, power producers can supplement their income by having a side hustle of mining cryptos , which can be profitable. The study mentioned other locations in the world where this model has been replicated, one of which was small power plant project in an African country supplying electricity to a nearby village. Crypto mining is used to ultimately subsidize the cost of electricity.
You rightly lamented the problem of the electricity tariff being a stumbling block for private players. I admit i know nothing about mining cryptos but this could be something to look into.
Was it Sabine Hossenfelder? Been too busy counting kilobytes to month end to risk keeping up with YouTube. The idea sounds credible to me. Countries as small as we are should be spearheading innovative thinking like this because even small outputs can move the needle.
Coal will suit us while we get something better in place but I’m worried about financing. There isn’t much good finance for coal these days.
But I do think they should look into something different. Is ZESA really suited to the task given how much money they already owe?