Telecoms giant, Econet Group, has picked Bulawayo (Zimbabwe’s second largest city after the capital Harare) as the centre of its renewable energy business in the country.

Bulawayo is historically regarded as the industrial centre of Zimbabwe, and it served as the hub to the country’s rail network with the National Railways of Zimbabwe headquartered there because of its strategic position near Botswana, Zambia and South Africa.

Econet Energy CEO Norman Moyo said at the direction of the group chairman Strive Masiyiwa, the company is setting up Bulawayo to try and stimulate employment opportunities in Zimbabwe’s second largest city.

The Econet Energy business operates in Zimbabwe as Distributed Power Africa (DPA) Solar and primarily focuses on rooftop solar power systems for commercial and industrial customers.

Moyo said since the company launched in Zimbabwe last year, it has 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 centralized monitoring by computers,” he said, adding that the DPA Solar model does not cost the customer in terms of installation, but only in terms of power used.

To the extent that Bulawayo grew to become the industrial hub of Zimbabwe, key events such as the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair have long been hosted in the city.

Prior to Zimbabwe’s economic collapse over the last couple of decades, Bulawayo had a large manufacturing presence with large industries based here before Zimbabwe’s economic collapse. However, some of these companies have either moved operations to Harare or shut down, in effect crippling Bulawayo’s economy.