Zimbabwe’s net metering reaches 118MW, from 2.1MW at the end of 2021
Households, farms and factories with grid-tied solar now feed 118MW into Zimbabwe’s network under net metering, according to ZESA’s acting chief executive. Participants export up to 5MW each and are paid in credits rather than cash, with ZETDC deferring connection fees until March 2027 to draw more of them in.
Zimbabwe’s net metering programme carried 2.1MW across 81 connections at the end of 2021, when the regulator gave its first tally and the export cap stood at 100kW.
Statutory Instrument 38 of 2022 lifted that cap to 5MW for any customer with a grid-tied system, opening the scheme to industrial, agricultural and commercial users alongside households.
Compensation comes as credits against consumption, and ZETDC’s published terms offset 0.8kWh for every kilowatt-hour a domestic customer exports and 0.85kWh for an industrial one, which keeps customers in lower tariff bands and cuts their monthly bills.
The total connected reached 118MW this year on the account of ZESA’s acting chief executive Cletus Nyachowe, spread across residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural users.
ZETDC has opened a 36-month promotional window running to March 2027, deferring connection fees and recovering them from accumulated energy credits, with applications made through its online platform and approvals usually inside a week.
Uptake still sits below what the scheme allows, and the Minister of Energy and Power Development, July Moyo, noted last year that some producers remain hesitant to join, which is what the window to March 2027 is meant to change.
