More power cuts likely

Zimbabwe’s electricity generation has fallen to 806 megawatts from all its power stations following a systems disturbance at Hwange Thermal Power and maintenance works at other plants, with more power outages likely, the company said today.

Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) said in a statement that Hwange experienced a blackout on Sunday resulting in the plant, which has installed capacity of 920MW producing 20MW. In total, it was producing 1 200MW prior to the blackout against a national demand of 2 200MW.

“There was a station blackout following a system disturbance on Sunday 19 October 2014 that took out Sherwood 1 and 2 and Insukamini feeders and tripped all five units that were in service. The station returned to service on Monday with Unit 5 on load. The unit is still picking up load,” said the company.

It said Unit 4, which was taken out of service for a major overhaul on October 10, remains out of commission until January 17 next year.

As of Monday this week, ZPC said it was producing 806MW from all the power stations.

Kariba Power Station is generating 732MW against an installed capacity of 750MW.

“Unit 3 was taken out of service on 16 October for brush gear maintenance. The unit returned to service on 17 October,” it said.

ZPC indicated that power generation at its small thermal power stations was low due to maintenance works.

The thermal power stations – Bulawayo, Munyati and Harare are currently producing 20MW, 26MW and 8MW respectively. This is against installed capacity of 90MW, 100MW and 75MW.

Early this month, the utility said Hydro Cahora Bassa, its primary source of imported energy has been supplying 50MW over the past months from the normal 400MW due to increased load from coal mines in the Tete Province of Mozambique.- The Source

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