Power shedding to ease end of November- govt

Harare (New Ziana) – Depressed power supplies currently being experienced in the country are expected to ease at the end of November, parliament heard on Wednesday.

After recording a marked improvement in power supply around July when Hwange units 7 and 8 came online contributing about 600 Megawatts, the country has found itself battling power shortages after one of the units was taken down for routine maintenance a fortnight ago.

At the same time, Hwange units 1 – 6 with an installed capacity of 960MW are unable to make any significant contribution because most of the units have become too old and obsolete.

The development comes at a time when power generation from the Kariba Hydro Power Plant is also subdued due to low water levels in the lake due to successive seasons of poor inflows.

Responding to questions from legislators, Energy and Power Development Minister Edgar Moyo said power supply is expected to improve when Hwange Unit 7 comes back on stream at the end of the month.

“We are going to begin to experience reduced load shedding at the end of November when Unit 7 comes on board. However, on complete (end to) load shedding, at the moment I cannot give a timeline because we are working on re-powering Units 1 to 6 and each time we are re-powering these units, we are going to be taking one unit out at a time. Once it is repaired, we take another unit. It is going to take a little bit of time, but we are banking mainly on independent power producers that I have said (have) projects that are ongoing up to about 600 megawatts. I cannot give that timetable, but we are working towards that,” he said.

“In terms of power import, we expect to eliminate that by 2025,” said Moyo.

According to the Zimbabwe Power Company, daily power generation as of Tuesday stood at 1 262 MW, with Hwange contributing 674 MW, Kariba 550 MW and independent power plants chipping in with 38 MW, while smaller thermal power stations such as Munyati, Harare and Bulawayo contributed nothing.

New Ziana