Schweppes Zimbabwe Limited is installing solar plants at its operations across the country to ensure adequate power supplies for production.
The beverage maker says it is focusing on renewable energy as part of the company’s climate change mitigation strategy.
Speaking to The Standard, Schweppes corporate affairs manager Ropafadzo Gwanetsa said they have already commissioned a 1 megawatt solar plant at the Willovale facility in Harare. Said Gwanetsa:
We took a deliberate strategy around sustainability to focus on renewable energy.
So our thrust around sustainability just doesn’t focus on renewable energy only.
It will focus on the solar energy drive that we are currently implementing for our facilities.
So we started off with the one megawatt solar plant at our Willowvale facility in Harare.
It’s a roof-mounted solar field and during peak periods we can operate on solar for our production purposes.
So, that one has already been commissioned.
That was the first project which was done in partnership with Distributed Power Africa (DPA).
DPA is the one responsible for installation and making sure that we have enough energy for our production.
She said the company has a 6 megawatts (MW) ground-mounted solar plant at the Beitbridge Juicing facility.
Gwanetsa added that surplus power from the system is fed to the Zimbabwe Electricity and Distribution Company (ZETDC) grid.
She said Schweppes Zimbabwe’s power-lease agreement with DPA will run for about 15 years and is “like a rental arrangement”.