07-12-07

Zimbabwe experiences more sunshine than most countries and there is much potential to harness solar energy for widespread use.
The country hosted the World Solar Summit in 1998, and it is in that year that there were widespread campaigns to educate people about the importance of harnessing solar power. Major steps were made after the summit with the Government taking the lead in promoting the use of solar energy in both rural and urban areas to address the inequities in access to adequate and affordable energy.

Indeed, a good number of rural clinics, schools, hospitals and villages benefited from the solar-powered rural electrification programme, which was supported by international agencies. However, this interest has over the years declined. It is now that the Rural Electrification Agency has started to take serious consideration of solar power as an alternative means to providing electricity to rural people.
This comes against increasing demand on hydro-electricity and the current power deficit the country and the Sadc region are experiencing. REA has started installing solar mini-grid systems at rural clinics and schools, and these pilot projects have scored a fair amount of success. Electrification of rural areas using solar power would no doubt help curb the current wanton destruction of forests and use of firewood as a primary source of energy.

The country needs a combination of approaches and a way forward to get most parts of the country electrified, which makes it imperative for REA to consider energy alternatives. Solar is a good energy option in developing countries such as Zimbabwe. It is practicable in areas that are far from the electricity grid for use in homes, rural clinics, on farms and water pumping stations.
It is cheaper to use because paraffin and candlelight have become more expensive. Villages in remote parts of the country that are not connected to the national power grid would have greater opportunities to develop from solar-power. One such opportunity isan investment in the business of solar-powered grinding mills. Harare City Council is one of the few institutions that have embraced solar energy when it revamped part of its traffic lights system by converting it to solar-powered, which is cost effective in terms of maintenance.

Because of the cost of transmission lines and the difficulty of transporting fuel to remote areas, we should increasingly turn to solar energy as a low cost way to supply electricity. One area where solar energy has not been put to use is water pumping, particularly in irrigation farming. Using the sun to power water pumps is making its own mark in countries such as China and India. Although the main problem with solar energy is the relatively high initial investment costs, the usefulness of solar power in rural areas, particularly for electrifying villages, pumping water and refrigeration in clinics, cannot be over-emphasised.
It is, therefore, important that the whole country be sensitised on the advantages of solar energy, and this is especially so in the wake of power blackouts and the power deficit the country and the whole Sadc region is experiencing.

Source: http://allafrica.com / The Herald