Overview of Zimbabwe’s Energy Sector

outages a day. There is a need for planned reforestation and afforestation programmes to meet this increased national demand, while maintaining the area covered by woodland.

Zimbabwe has a significant number of timber plantations. Production is dominated by three large organisations, namely Border Timbers Limited, Forestry Commission, and Wattle Company Limited, which produce about 87% of the national output. In 2002, plantation forests occupied about 0.02% of the total land area, the majority in the Eastern Highlands. These comprised 81,000 ha of pine, 24,000 ha of eucalyptus and 13,000 ha of wattle.

Timber plantations produce over 70,000 tonnes of biomass waste annually and this has the potential to fuel power plants to create electricity or other forms of energy.This wood waste is generally used in process steam boilers for lumber drying kilns. However, at the largest mills the amount of biomass waste generated on-site could alone yield as much as 4 MW of usable power. As such, biomass waste has the potential to provide sustainable power for local consumption.

12.1.2 Coal

Coal is another key energy source, second in importance after fuel wood. Zimbabwe’s coal reserves are estimated at about 10.6 to 26 billion tonnes in situ in 21 deposits, of which 2 billion tonnes are considered mineable by open cast methods (AfDB, 2011). To date, only 3 million tonnes per year are used to generate power at Hwange Power Station and the small power plants in Bulawayo, Harare, and Munyati. Hwange Power Station is the main producer of thermal power, and consumes about 2.5 million tonnes of coal per year. At present, it operates at about 50% capacity.

Industrial coal is used for steam raising and smelting. The major users of coal are the steel, chrome and cement industries. Since 2000 production in the food and textile industry has fallen, reducing its coal consumption. Tobacco curing was another major user of coal but now depends mostly on fuel wood. High efficiency tobacco barns, which achieved low coal intensity per unit of tobacco, are now less popular with farmers due to their dependence on electricity for driving the air supply and circulation system. Frequent power cuts make this more efficient technology less reliable.

Zimbabwe is also endowed with coal bed methane deposits, located at Beitbridge, Chiredzi, Hwange and Lupane. These are estimated at more than 600 billion m³ and could also generate electricity.

12.1.3 Petroleum fuels

Petroleum fuels are another important source of energy, especially for the transport sector. Diesel is the main fuel used for public road transport, agriculture machinery, rail transport and road freight.

Gasoline is mostly used for light passenger vehicles. In 2005 diesel consumption was 900 million litres per year and gasoline was 730 million litres per year. Transport services use 46% of petroleum fuel, 26% is used by commerce, 14% by agriculture, 10% for manufacturing and 4% for mining (Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, 2005).

12.1.4 Renewables

There are significant renewable energy sources in the country, including hydroelectricity, solar radiation and wind. Hydro-electricity forms about 50% of locally produced grid electricity at present. Hydropower potential on the Zambezi River is estimated at 37 terrawatt hours (TWh) per annum, of which about 10 TWh per year have been harnessed (ibid). The Zambezi River offers opportunities for large-scale hydropower at Batoka Gorge (4370 gigawatt hours/GWh), Devil’s Gorge (3000 GWh), Mupata Gorge (3000 GWh) and Katambora Gorge (2000 GWh). All these sites would be shared with Zambia, as they lie on the border. The Zambezi catchment is vulnerable to droughts, though, despite encompassing some of the high rainfall regions of southern Africa. In 1992 the water level Kariba Dam reached low of 1 m above the power station intake, threatening hydropower generation. Potential for small-scale hydropower also exists. Because of Zimbabwe’s terrain and rainfall pattern, small hydropower potential is mostly concentrated in the Eastern part of the country.

Solar radiation is available at an average of 2,000 kilowatts (kW) per hour per km² per year, spread over roughly 3,000 hours per year. At this rate, photovoltaic cells could generate the current total electrical energy consumption of 10,000 GWh with 10% efficiency and with installations covering 1.3% of Zimbabwe’s total surface area. There is also considerable potential for wind energy, particularly for water pumping.

Ethanol is increasing in importance as a source of energy. An ethanol distillation plant was installed at Triangle in the 1980s, and has since supplied anhydrous ethanol for the transport sector, blended with gasoline at a rate of up to 13%. The recent construction of the Chisumbanje Ethanol Plant points to the increasing prominence of ethanol in Zimbabwe’s future energy supply.

Biogas offers an additional source of household energy. More than 400 biogas digesters have been installed in Zimbabwe, which range in capacity from 3–16 m³ (AfDB, 2011).

Figure 15 illustrates the declining trend of energy consumption from 1980 to 2008. This can be partly explained by de-industrialisation, a result of the economic structural adjustment programme of the 1990s and the decade-long economic crisis from 2000 to 2009, which reduced industrial energy use.

Figure 15. Primary energy production and consumption in Zimbabwe 1980–2008

(Source: Energeci Holdings, 2010)

The Energy Resource Assessment of 1998 shows that the bulk of the Zimbabwe’s energy resources are from renewable energy sources. However, fossil fuels and unsustainable fuel wood harvesting dominate energy use. The 1994 greenhouse gas inventory for Zimbabwe showed the energy sector being responsible for 80% of the greenhouse gases emitted by the country.²⁰ Importantly, Zimbabwe’s first National Communication on Climate Change of 1998 highlighted how the country is a net sink for greenhouse gases due to absorption of carbon by forests. Figure 16 shows Zimbabwe’s greenhouse gas emissions from commercial energy.

20 Commercial fuels exclude fuel wood and according to the UNFCCC, CO₂ emissions from fuel wood are not reported in the national totals.

Figure 16. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Commercial Energy Use

Source: Government of Zimbabwe, 1998