Government has urged local bussineses and the private sector to take advantage of government’s incentives put in place amidist the current energy crisis.
Speaking during a press briefing, minister of Information and media Hon. Cornelius Mweetwa said the private sector must be able to turn the current enrgy hardship into bussines opportunities which will inturn help the country to be energy secure.
“Government, in wanting to shift from the monopoly of a dependency of hydro electricity which has become a traditional source of power in this country, the government is encouraging the private sector to come on board to take advantage of this unfortunate situation,” He said.
Mr. mweetwa said the private sector shoul invest in mini power grids to supplement government’s efforts towards the mitigation of the energy crisis in the County by producing atleast five Megga Watts of electricity.
However, Mr Mweeta notes that about 120 applicants have so far responded to government’s call.
“I’m reliably informed that in the next few weeks, maybe two weeks from now, the successful applicants will be given awards for them to commernce their mobilisation for the construction of such mini grids so that we begin to translate our talk Into walk,” He said.
Further, Mr mweetwa called upon media houses to foster mindset change by packaging their massages in such a way that promotes the use of ulternative sources of power and getting rid of hydro power dependency.
“There are alternative sources and they should not be taken as temproral, they should be taken as permanent so that we run in tandem with the anticipated impending and ever current challenges of power generation through hydro power generation,” he said.
Meanwhile, Minister of Energt Hon. Makozo Chikote said the Energy Regulation board (ERB) approved the net metering guidelines which clearly stipulates the step by step procedure for accessing the service.
“Net metering is a system that will allow consumers who also produce electricity to generate their own power from renewable energy such as solar and any excess electricity generated can be fed back into [the] Zesco grid,” Mr. Chikote said.
He added that this initiative does not only promote the use of renewable sources of energy, but also enhances energy security