Bulawayo, (New Ziana) – The country`s power utility, Zesa Holdings said on Tuesday Unit 8 of Hwange Thermal Power Station had been taken off grid due to a technical fault. In a statement, Zesa Holdings said the unit will be out of service for 10 days while restoration work is carried out.

“Zesa Holdings wishes to inform it`s valued stakeholders that Hwange Unit 8 has been taken off the grid due to a technical fault. The unit will be out of service for 10 days while restoration work is carried out,” it said.

During the outage, the power utility said Hwange Unit 7 will remain in operation, generating 335MW to support system stability while generation at Kariba South Power Station has also been ramped up, with careful management of water allocations, to help compensate for the temporary shortfall.

“We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding as we work to restore the unit to service,” said Zesa Holdings. Meanwhile, Zesa Holdings General Manager responsible for Stakeholder Relations, Dr George Manyaya announced that Hwange Unit 6 had been successfully stored to service.

He said the unit had been synchronised to the national grid, and was now fully operational, contributing to improved generation capacity. “This means 150 megawatts has been restored to the national grid,” he said.

Furthermore, Manyaya said that the Unit 3 is now on scheduled maintenance for the next 44 days and is expected to be back on the national grid in November. “We would like to advise the nation that Unit 3 is on scheduled maintenance for 44 day and everything is going on well.

Our engineers are doing the maintenance and we expect it to be back to the national grid in November. We like to tender our appreciation to our stakeholders for their patience during this period,” he said.

New Ziana