Zimbabwe’s ZETDC has been given the green light to purchase electricity from the Dema emergency power plant at a total cost of 15,45 cents per kilowatt per hour by the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority. This new development will see Zesa pay a total of $83 million, approximately $7 million per year for the 536GWh/year that will be supplied.
This is in contradiction to the $194 million reported in the private media.The Dema power project is one of the remedial measures set in place by Government to alleviate power blackouts that hit the country late last year as a result of declining water levels at Kariba Dam.
The 200MW power plant which is being developed by Sakunda Holdings is expected to commence adding 100MW of electricity to the national grid soon.
Gloria Magombo, the ZERA chief executive Engineer confirmed the tariff in a letter to Mr Kudakwashe Tagwirei, the Sakunda Holdings founder and chief executive recently.
Eng Magombo added: “The approved tariff will only apply to the power purchase agreement between Sakunda Holdings and Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company for the supply of 100MW power.
The Dema power project will be in place while other bigger expansion project like Hwange Power Station (600MW) and Kariba south (300MW) materialise.
Sakunda will lease power generators from Aggreko, the world’s leading temporary power generation company.
The total amount of energy that be supplied from Dema each year will be 536GWh not 1 072 GWh as stated by the some media reports.
The cabinet has already endorsed the project with Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck Sibanda saying he is satisfied with progress so far made on site when he conducted a monitoring tour of the site recently.
While the other bigger projects are underway, the Dema power project will be implemented and complemented by another 120MW that will come from the Mutare Peaking Power Plant.
The power plant is one of the top priority projects currently targeted under Zim-Asset and the contractor, Helcraw Electrical (Pvt) Ltd, is already on the ground.
The electricity from Dema, which is directly fed into the national grid, will also be post-paid with a 45-day payment period.
The level cost per kWh for Dema Power will be closer to US $0.35c (R525.00cper kWh) !!!
South Africans currently pay around US $0.06c (R0.90c per kWh)
Who let all the water out of Kariba … was the Dam drained to justify the Demit Project.
The biggest cost is the Fuel and Diesel suppliers do not accept payment after 45 days.
They won’t supply unless a up front deposit is paid one month ahead and the fuel is fully paid for before shipment!
The Dema project will most likely cause fuel shortages in Zimbabwe again.
The old pipeline from Beira to Harare is already overloaded and Fuel is being delivered by road tankers. This will make things impossible.
Who came up with this crazy idea? Why did they not build the Power Station closer to the Fuel in Mutare or Beira?
The 200MW plant will require 160,000 tons of Diesel per year, which must be transported from Beira to Harare at a rate of 50 x 26 ton fuel transport tankers each day!!! The Harare, Mutare to Beira road will be called the Dema Road in future (nothing else will be able to use the road).
$82’812,000.00 / 12 months = $6’901,000.00 per month !!!!!!
536,000,000kWh per year x $0.1545c = $82’812,000.00
The cost will be $83M per year ($7M per month) for the plant, plus fuel cost of $111M per year ($9.25M per month) = $194M per year !!!
“This new development will see Zesa pay a total of $83 million, approximately $7 million “per year” for the 536GWh/year that will be supplied” is not correct,…. that should be “This new development will see Zesa pay a total of $83 million, approximately $7 million “per month” for the 536GWh/year that will be supplied!
The cost of US 15,45 US cents is only the cost of the Generation Plant not including the Fuel!