News Flash
- A surge in electricity imported from South Africa’s energy utility Eskom, has triggered prolonged power outages in Zimbabwe which has overloaded its network and caused generating plants to fail – according to Zimbabwe’s Energy Minister.
“The surge caused a nationwide blackout in the early hours of Monday, as it affected output at the Kariba hydropower plant and the coal-fired Hwange facility” Zimbabwe’s Energy Minister, Mr Soda Zhemu announced yesterday.
Generation has since been restored at Kariba and it’s the only one of the nation’s five plants that is working, while engineers are trying to restore output at the Hwange units, he said.
“Demand is outweighing internal power-generation capacity,” Zhemu added.
Zimbabwe doesn’t produce enough of its own power and relies on imports from neighbouring South Africa and Mozambique to meet demand.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal