Schweppes Zimbabwe Limited embarked on a 1MW solar plant installation on the rooftop (9000sqm) of its Harare facility which was commissioned on the 29th of November 2019. Schweppes Zimbabwe Limited intends to roll out 1.96MW installations to the remaining production and sales depots across the country to green the entire business. This project is a climate mitigation project.
The activities above are to address improvement gaps on the company’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Number 7 which Clean and Affordable Energy and SDG number 13 which speaks to Climate Action. Key issues that prompted the project as it relates to the SDG’s above were;
- Poor electricity availability and reliability (400MW vs capacity of 1200MW at national level),
- Thrust to leverage affordable renewable energy options (solar),
- GHG emissions from diesel generators
- Pro-activity to impending risks and opportunities due to climate change from the regulatory front through the National Climate policy, National Renewable Energy Policy and the National Climate Change Response Strategy.
- This project created employment during the installation phase for 66 technicians at its peak including 2 female technicians.
The 1 MW plant produces an average of 4,500 kWh of energy on a day with an average demand of 18,000 kWh required for 24-hour plant operations. This translates to 28% of energy on average being generated from the solar plant. The solar system is grid tied without power storage thus the deficit of the power requirements from the production facility is satisfied by electricity from the grid or from the generators. This contribution from solar has reduced greenhouse gases by 2.7 tonnes of Carbon dioxide equivalent on a daily basis. This excludes reduction of diesel usage by generators (1.5 MVA in size) which no longer supply 100% of power needs when there is no power from the grid but only deficit from solar plant during the day. This has reduced monthly diesel usage from 15,500 litres to 3,500 litres which is 31.13 tonnes of Carbon dioxide equivalent on a monthly basis.
This project is the largest rooftop solar project in Sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa. This project is evidence of private sector commitment to climate mitigation.
System is made up of 2,446 panels (rated at 390W each), 18 inverters (rated at 50kW each) and power combiners. The system does not have any power storage due to the amount of investment that was required to acquire them.
