Econet Wireless has chosen the City of Bulawayo as the centre of Distributed Power Africa (DPA), its renewable energy business in Zimbabwe in order to stimulate employment opportunities in the country’s second largest city.
DPA primarily focuses on rooftop solar solutions for both commercial and home consumers. As with all things Econet these days, Econet itself is DPA’s first and biggest customer. From the time they launched last year they have installed solutions on hundreds of sites which are so far mostly Econet base stations and offices as well as other non Econet homes and factories.
The solar company’s model is such that the customer is not charged for installation but pays rates for usage of power. Think of them as ZESA for solar.
In a statement yesterday, Econet Energy Chief Executive, Norman Moyo said at the direction of the group chairman, Strive Masiyiwa who wants to contribute and stimulate employment creation in the City of Queens (and Kings), the company was setting up its energy business in Bulawayo.
“Econet has chosen the City of Bulawayo as the centre of its renewable energy business in Zimbabwe,” reads part of the statement.
The Econet Energy business operates in Zimbabwe as Distributed Power Africa (DPA) and primarily focuses on rooftop solar power systems for commercial and industrial customers.
Moyo said since the company launched in Zimbabwe last year, it had already developed hundreds of sites, including base stations for Econet, offices and factories, as well as a few homes.
“Our solution is very high tech. We have solar panels, battery systems and centralised monitoring by computers,” he said.
Moyo added that the DPA solar model did not cost the customer in terms of installation, but only for power used.
The renewable energy company has embarked on a nationwide initiative to increase access to clean and renewable energy through the provision of tailor-made solar power solutions using a lease-based model.
Signed up several commercial and industrial clients totalling 2.7MW. These include organisations in the food, beverages and dairy sectors, schools, farms and small business enterprises.
In 2018, DPA announced a $250-million investment plan based on renewable energy solar projects.
