Can Zimbabwe end its power imports by December 2027, as ZESA plans?
ZESA’s acting chief executive Cletus Nyachowe told Parliament in May that private developers had 635MW under construction and another 730MW closing, enough for 1,365MW of new capacity by December 2026 and an end to imports a year later. The national compact sets out what still has to be built.
Private construction in Zimbabwe’s power sector stood at 635MW when Cletus Nyachowe spoke to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee at Hwange in May, with a further 730MW concluding financial close, which he said would give the grid 1,365MW of new capacity by December 2026.
The projects he listed run from Zhongjin Heli’s captive plant, whose first 100MW is commissioned and whose second phase of 135MW was 45% built, to Sunny Jinlong’s 90MW thermal plant near Norton at 35% and the 100MW Houyontong solar plant at Bijou, then 45% complete and due to connect through a 0.2km 132kV cable into Chertsey substation. “Private players are no longer waiting on the sidelines,” he said.
ZESA’s own sequence, as he set it out, ends load-shedding this year, stops imports by the end of 2027, begins net exports in 2028, clears the connection backlog in 2029 and reaches universal access by 2030, against a requirement of roughly $2 billion for generation, transmission and distribution.
Zimbabwe’s national energy compact under Mission 300 puts much of the difficulty on the wires, counting at least 1,607km of greenfield transmission needed to meet domestic demand and trade properly into the Southern African Power Pool, alongside a connection backlog of 467,470 customers as of May 2025.
One member of the same committee endorsed the proposed 500MW solar rollout while warning against moving away from the baseload capacity the country already has.
Mines are paying for parts of the network themselves, with a 26km 132kV line running from Gwanda substation to Blanket Mine’s new substation and a 50/75MVA transformer, and Sandawana financing a second phase from Tokwe to Zvishavane.
