As part of its strategy to cut on costs and promote sustainable renewable energy, the country’s flagship bourse, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) has switched to solar energy and expects to save up to US$ 42 000 in electricity spending, 263Chat Business has established.
The 40 Kilo-volt-amperes (kVA) solar plant was commissioned yesterday by the company board chairperson, Caroline Sandura.
“The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Limited (“ZSE”) is pleased to inform stakeholders on the commissioning of its solar plant with a power generation capacity of up to 40KVA.The overall objective of the solar project was to move towards a cleaner, affordable and reliable source of power given the need to keep trading servers continuously up,” the ZSE wrote.
The ZSE just like many companies in the country have endured disruptions in electricity supply and have had to rely on alternative energy sources like diesel powered generators which are environmentally hazardous.
“Adopting the solar energy route is in line with the ZSE commitment to sustainable practices. The ZSE has been a member of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative since 2015 and in 2019 it adopted sustainability disclosure requirements in its listings requirements,” it said.
Last year the bourse published principles for Green and Social Bonds to be considered by issuers intending to raise funds for green projects.
However, due to the harsh economic environment in the country, most companies have struggled to raise funds to switch to clean energy as alternative sources.
In May this year, the state power company, Zesa invited bids for the construction of 500 megawatts (MW) of solar power plants across the country in a bid to increase its use of renewable energy and improve supply on the national grid.
However, despite having improved its electricity supply in the past few months, Zesa seem to have reintroduced power cuts lately.
The effects of this are likely to cause severe output losses across productive sector for an economy already on its knees.
Last year, the mining sector, a key foreign currency earner for the country reported 20 percent losses in output due to power supply disruptions.
