The Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution Company (Zetdc) has invited solar rooftop owners to join a new net metering scheme.
The national power transmission company has launched the program for solar system owners with smart meters, the cost of which can be included in the fee for securing net metering access, if necessary.
As with other net metering schemes, the state-owned body stressed only electrical unit credits would be included in household bills, not cash payments. “Net metering is beneficial to the utility and the nation at large through the saving of foreign currency, as there will be less power imports,” tweeted Zetdc.
Tender
Global newswire Reuters has reported on a public notice issued by Zetdc today which appears to indicate the utility has opened a tender for 500 MW of solar generation capacity. pv magazine has been unable to find the reported document on either the public notice or tender sections of the Zetdc website at the time of going to press, however.
“The Zimbabwe Electricity and Distribution Company (Zetdc) is intending to contract 500 MW of PV solar plants of varying capacities at different identified strategic locations,” Reuters quoted the utility as stating in the document.
In January, the World Bank said it was helping the Zimbabwean government introduce a competitive tendering program for procuring large scale PV power projects under the recently completed National Renewable Energy Policy.
The nation is in desperate need of power generation capacity and solar offers a cheap, scalable solution. Zimbabwe had only 12 MW of installed solar capacity at the end of December, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. Only 1 MW of solar was added to the country’s grid last year.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
3 comments
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.