- The Sunday Mail in Zimbabwe reports that the country will begin receiving 100MW from Zambia’s state-owned power utility Zesco early next month under a five-year deal, while a delegation from Mozambique is expected in the country this week to finalise negotiations to supply an additional 150MW to ease ongoing power cuts. Read more
The delegation from Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM), which is currently providing 50MW to Zesa, was expected in the country for a week-long visit.
The recent local power shortfall was worsened by depressed generation at Hwange and Harare thermal power stations, including the loss of one unit that produces 125MW at Kariba Power Station. Zimbabwe’s energy utility has since facilitated the creation of a group of intensive energy users to finance power imports from the region.
Related news: Zambia’s energy utility, ZESCO, has unsustainable debt of US$3.5 billion
Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) acting managing director Engineer Howard Choga told the Sunday Mail that the power imports were imminent.
“We signed power import deals with Zambia a long time ago, but we had not been getting electricity from that country because of cash flow challenges. Read more
“Now, because we have prepaid, we expect this to be settled in the coming weeks and we will start receiving 100MW from Zambia. We have to prepay them a month before we receive the electricity.”
The power import deal with Zesco has a three to five-year tenure.
“Currently, we are getting 50MW from Cahora Bassa and 50MW from EDM in Mozambique.
We had signed a deal for 200MW with EDM, but we were only accessing 50MW. So they are sending a delegation into the country tomorrow (today) and they will be in the country for the whole week so we will discuss how we can access the remaining 150MW.”
The Zimbabwe Power Company – Zesa’s power generation arm – is currently producing 1 201MW at its five power stations against peak winter season demand of 2 200MW.
Last week, the biggest power generation plant in Zimbabwe, Kariba South, was generating only 758MW against an installed capacity of 1 050MW. Hwange Power Station was generating 411MW against an installed capacity of 920MW.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
Source: The Sunday Mail Zimbabwe
