The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Gloria Magombo (pictured) has said the Government is committed to ensuring that the electricity supply is improved and once it reaches optimum levels, it is sustained.
This comes amid a modest increase in power generation by the power utility over the past few weeks which has resulted in reduced load shedding.
Speaking to The Herald yesterday, Magombo said one of the major strategies the Government has adopted is to ensure that the power utility, ZESA Holdings, recovers the full cost of electricity supply. She said:
The most important thing that you have to appreciate as indicated previously is that the Government will continue to engage various partners either in the private sector or our entities to ensure that power supply improves and is sustained and one of the major strategies which we have taken which was through the regulatory issues was to ensure that the utility can recover the full cost of supply.
They need to be empowered such that they are then able to meet the cost of the supply of energy and also that of maintenance and repairs of their equipment.
The equipment is old. It’s a process not an event so they will continue to take the steps to ensure that all the old equipment is taken out slowly and taken for a full overhaul.
We have adopted a strategy that the private sector should be part of and, as a Government, we have seen a high increase in private sector installations of commercial and industrial systems to assist ZESA in meeting its part.
We have seen a huge increase in solar rooftops which are also being connected to the grid, especially during the day and for us, we want to appreciate the private sector’s initiatives to also complement the efforts of the utility to ensure everyone does their part.
On Thursday, 08 February, the country was generating a total of 1 430MW against a demand of at least 1 800MW.
The Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) was generating 824MW and 558MW from Hwange and Kariba, respectively, while Independent Power Producers (IPPs) were producing 48MW.
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