by Rungano Dzikira

The processing of energy licenses has been reduced from six months to one month, as government props up efforts to improve energy supply in the country, a government official has said.

The Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development, Magna Mudyiwa said that government was committed to improving energy supply in the country and has since moved in to ease the process of acquiring an energy license to a month.

“Among other notable improvements, we have reduced the period for processing power licenses from six months to a single month for independent power producers.

“This is also in addition to the fact that Government initially announced the removal of duty on solar equipment imports, as well as lithium batteries, at the same time government is in the process of investing more in renewable solar systems,” she said.

She also added that the energy policy document also sets a target to develop an additional 1 000 MW or 16% of total generation to meet electricity demand, whichever was higher, from renewable energy sources by 2025 and additional 1 600MW or 23% of overall generation to meet electricity demand, whichever was higher, from renewable energy sources by 2030.

Zimbabwe’s renewable energy potential is found in solar, small hydropower, biomass, geothermal, and wind.

In terms of solar, it has a potential of 16 to 20 MJ/m2/day in Zimbabwe, and in relation to wind, wind power generation potential is 100MW, giving total renewable energy potential at 1 872MW.

Over the years, Zimbabwe has largely relied on hydropower and thermal energy generation.