Harare - Zimbabwe will ban electric geysers as power shortages escalates and threatens the country's economic fortunes.
According to a press release by the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, it will soon be a requirement that all new buildings are fitted with solar geysers and not electric geysers.
"Electricity geysers in old buildings must also be replaced with solar geysers," said the Ministry.
"The country has about 250 000 electric geysers which are expected to be replaced or retrofitted with solar geysers," said the Ministry adding that this programme is expected to yield savings of about 300 MW once implemented.
The official launch of the National Domestic Solar Water Heating programme will be held on the 30th of September 2015 in Harare.
The move to solar geysers comes at a time Zimbabwe is currently facing an acute power shortage.
On Thursday, Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) released a load shedding time table that will see some residential areas going without power for at least 9 hours every day.
The load shedding is being done to balance the power supply available and the demand.
ZETDC said the increased power shortfalls are due to low water levels at Kariba Power Station, and generation constraints at Hwange Power Station and limited imports.