The Sunday Mail
Online Reporter
Sustainable energy supply is key to the achievement of an upper middle-income economy by 2030, Minister of Energy and Power Development, Soda Zhemu, has said.
In his address to the 5th Southern African Solar Thermal Training (Soltrain) conference in Harare, Minister Zhemu said the Solar Thermal Technology and Implementation Plan, which was launched in 2018 supports Government’s vision of making Zimbabwe an upper middle-income economy by 2030.
Soltrain is a regional initiative on capacity building and the demonstration of solar thermal systems in the Sadc region.
“In this 2030 trajectory, the Government is guided by the National Development Strategy I and II, which clearly recognise the importance of energy efficiency programmes in our economic activities.
“The Ministry appreciates that solar water heating through the efforts of Soltrain and other private players is one of our key strategies in implementing NDS1 in the energy sector,” Zhemu said.
He said Zimbabwe has vast renewable energy resources like solar, hydro, biomass, wind and geothermal that have largely remained unexploited.
“We have a good solar irradiance resource, which averages about 20 Megajoules per square meter per day (MJ/m2/day) in Zimbabwe. Let us make use of this natural and clean energy as this will assist in saving and reducing the current power import bill,” he said.
