The Sunday News
THE Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) has completed an audit on energy usage by various companies and homesteads which has shown that the country can save at least 250 megawatts of power by implementing energy saving methods.
In an interview, Zera chief executive officer Engineer Gloria Magombo such energy could be used to support the productive sector.
“We have just finalised the energy audit where we have discovered that there are 250 megawatts that can be saved per day by different initiatives of energy efficiency at homes, industries and commercial premises.
We have identified various ways how those initiatives will be implemented in order to save energy. This will ensure that we realise our target to get 300 megawatts more by 2018,” said Eng Magombo.
She said during the audit they visited a number of institutions to see how they used their power.
“We went out to different places and did an audit of the industry, commercial buildings, farms, mining and supermarkets so that we get see their activities and to know what can be done to save electricity,” she said.
She said during the audit it was discovered that most industries were still using the old energy guzzling fluorescent bulbs.
Eng Magombo challenged the industry to replace them with new Light Emitting Diodes (LED) that consumes less energy.
“We now have the LED bigger panels for industrial lighting which are now on the market and we are encouraging commercial buildings to start changing the old lights, especially hotels because they are the ones with a massive number of bulbs. I was counting the bulbs in one of the rooms in a hotel in Harare and had over a 100 bulbs. And if each bulb uses 60 watts, that means they will be using 6 000 watts per second but if they use the new LED, they will be using 600 watts per second which is 10 times less,” said the official.
Eng Magombo said they would want to engage the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) to do a pilot project of installing new energy saving lights.
“We are looking forward to do a pilot project with ZETDC and install the new lighting system at some of the hospitals in the country. The exercise will not only be reducing the consumption at national level but also the hospital bill,” said Eng Magombo.
Three years back the ZETDC embarked on free replacement of the inefficient incandescent bulbs in domestic houses with energy saving bulbs.
The replacement of the energy consuming incandescent bulbs has paid dividends after the country saved a significant amount of power.
Eng Magombo said incandescents were the most inefficient bulbs and they intend to ban them on the market.
“Those bulbs were the first to be on the market and consume about 60 watts per second. The next bulb that was introduced on the market is the compact florescent which consumes about 11 watts per second,” said Eng Magombo.
“We are graduating from the compact florescent bulbs to the LED bulbs and these are even more efficient as they consume about five watts per second.”
She said the florescent bulbs have mercury in it “and from an environmental point of view you need to dispose them properly”.
Eng Magombo said the second phase of bulb replacement was likely to be done using the LEDs.
“We have said to ZETDC if they want to go to the second phase of bulb replacement it has to be with these LEDs. Namibia is already doing that. It’s cheaper to save the 42 megawatts than to buy a new power station. Energy efficiency always help reduce the costs of building new capacity,” said the official.
At peak Zimbabwe needs 2 200 megawatts of electricity but the existing generating capacity is 1 200 megawatts resulting in a shortfall of nearly 1 000MW.
