Bulawayo Power Station upgrade this quarter

THE Government says the tendering process to find a suitable firm to upgrade the Bulawayo Thermal Power Station has been completed and rehabilitation work is expected to begin this quarter.

The Government has secured $87 million from India Export and Import Bank (India EximBank) for the rehabilitation of station as part of measures to boost national power output.

About $30 million of the $87 million has since been extended towards the rehabilitation project so far.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Southern Africa Power Pool conference, which ended in Bulawayo yesterday, Energy and Power Development Minister Dr Samuel Undenge said the procurement process for the project has been done in India and what was left was to conduct another tendering process locally.

"So, that process is coming to its tailend and we expect that towards the end of this quarter, we should start to see activity at Bulawayo," said Dr Undenge.

"We are working on the process to start the rehabilitation of Bulawayo Power Plant and once everything has been completed, which I hope will be very soon then work will commence."

The rehabilitation of the Bulawayo Power Station entails, among others, replacing the old boilers that use old technology with state-of- the-art boilers that can take any type of coal. The minister said generators and turbines will be reconditioned while generators and the turbines will be refurbished.

"Those (generators and turbines) tend not to be affected much over the lifespan of a power station. The unit that is affected much is the boiler because boilers for those stations operate at 800 degrees centigrade there about, a 1 000 degrees centigrade you can imagine how hot they become. "And of course under enormous pressure in terms of the water that is heated and then is pressured to go and feed into the turbines, to turn the turbines, which then turns the generator that generates electricity," he said.

Dr Undenge said since the money for the rehabilitation of Bulawayo Power plant was coming from India EximBank, the financier requires that a tender be floated in India and that a company from that country leads out in construction of the project. The India EximBank loan has a tenure of 13 years, a grace period of three years and a repayment period of 10 years at two percent interest rate per annum.

Bulawayo Power Station was built in 1957 and has an installed capacity of 120 megawatts. The Zimbabwe Power Company indicated on its website that as of yesterday that Bulawayo and Munyati Thermal Power Stations were not generating anything.

The Government has also prioritised the rehabilitation of Harare and Munyati Thermal Power Stations.

The Government is in the process of scouting for funding Harare and Munyati.