eBusiness Weekly
Theresa Mhazo and Latifa Mapfumo
Hydronax Energy, in partnership with Go Green Association of Zimbabwe, has announced plans to establish a 100MW green hydrogen production plant worth US$200 million in the country.
The plans, which will be implemented within the next two years, come as Zimbabwe has been experiencing depressed power generation on the grid at a time of increased usage of electricity.
Last week, the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), released a load shedding schedule to manage the power deficit but with the intervention of renewable energy, power challenges could be eased.
Chairman of Hydronax Energy, Dr Hilton Mabhurukwa, noted that the project is in alignment with the President Mnangagwa’s vision 2030.
“Like the President (Mnangagwa) always says, nyika ino vakwa nevene vayo,” said Dr Mabhurukwa.
According to Dr Mabhurukwa, the project is going to bring employment to the nation as well as partnership with universities. He said the company will conduct feasibility studies to optimise the project.
“We have the plan and the funding,” he said.
What is left, according to Dr Mabhurukwa, is commitment from various stakeholders ‘for us to commence the project.”
“Hydronax proposes to install and maintain 100MW solar farm in the first phase and also install a 20MW green hydrogen production facility by 2026 with a production of up to 3 000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year and it would be first of its kind in Zimbabwe,” said Dr Mabhurukwa.
CEO of Hydronax Energy, Victoria Walker, stated that her team is working on bringing cheaper and affordable fuel, hoping this will solve Zimbabwe’s ongoing high costs of fuel and electricity shortages.
“The two projects both combined will create 800 to 900 employees and a policy to employ staff by proximity of their location to employment site will be actively pursued,” Walker said.
Due to the abundance of resources in Zimbabwe, Hydronax Energy is hoping to be able to set up a solar hydrogen plant that will generate electricity 24/7. The plant will be set up either in Masvingo, Shangani or Kariba.
These are potential sites with huge amounts of unused resources as confirmed by the Ministry of Energy and Power Development Director Dr Sosten Ziuku.
“As Government, we have been developing lot of infrastructure in terms of dams,” he said.
“We do have Kariba Dam. Currently we have the Gwayi-Shangani which will be completed very soon, so a project of this nature would require that potential sites for generating hydrogen are close to large scales of water.”
Lloyd Munetsi from the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) said the project is a promising green programme.
