Cross Mabale solar project now feeding 5MW into national grid
INDEPENDENT power producer (IPP), Solgas, which has started feeding 5MW solar energy into the national grid says plans are underway to expand capacity to 50MW by year 2025.
Situated in Cross Mabale in Hwange district, the company has partnered with Old Mutual, who financed the first project to the tune of US$7,3 million.
Solgas started feeding the electricity into national grid on October 3 from the 15 600 solar panels, each measuring 330watts at the solar farm near Cross Mabale.
A switching station was built on site with two transformers while a 28km power line was also erected from the farm to Dete where it feeds to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) grid.
The project is a wholly locally-funded initiative with potential to go a long way in addressing electricity challenges in the country and also helping reduce foreign currency spent on importing power.
The 5MW plant is sitting on a 13ha piece of land acquired from Hwange Rural District Council in 2015 and the implementation of the project started in 2019.
Speaking during a recent visit to the plant by Old Mutual team, Solgas co-founder and chief finance officer, Mr Tafadzva Mundicha, said the project already has a licence to expand to 15MW by June next year.
“We have a 25-year agreement with Zesa and we will have an additional 10MW by June 2022 as we target to get to 50MW around end of 2025,” he said.
“The idea has been to prove the concept by 5MW and wet the appetite of funders, then go forward. The challenge is foreign currency but once we have proved the concept, Treasury will see value in funding and reducing costs associated with importing electricity.
“We are the biggest solar IPP feeding into the grid and started on October 3,” said Mr Mundicha.
He said the target was to tap solar energy for eight hours but were getting 12 hours each day because of the longer sunny days in Hwange.
“The plan was that when we eventually commission it will be groundbreaking for the additional 10MW as we hope to be allowed by the power utility to get to 50MW.
As for now we are getting maximum output that we forecasted and we are performing more that we expected,” he said.
His partner at Solgas, Mr Petros Kazungu, said the major challenge was getting grid stability as the onset of the rains was causing under or over voltage, whereby the plant may sometimes fail to feed the grid because of technical faults to the power line as a result of falling of electricity poles especially in Lupane area.
“Poles are falling especially in Lupane but we are sorting that out with Zesa. We are the first IPP to be feeding into the grid and to be visible to Zesa national control centre as we have put a 16km fibre optic system,” he said.
Solgas was founded in 2015 and partnered Old Mutual Zimbabwe in 2017.
Old Mutual managing director for investments, Mrs Marjorie Mayida, said the group has invested millions of dollars into alternative clean energy countrywide.
“The 5MW is the first phase of the partnership with Solgas. This is investment in green energy in line with what was discussed at the COP26 conference.
This plant in Hwange is just one of the other investments like another 5MW in Gwanda, which we hope will be up in June next year, a 1,6 MW hydropower station in Chipinge,
which was commissioned in 2017 and others in Masvingo and Chinhoyi,” she said. – The Chronicle
