Increased Load Shedding To Go Beyond August

The ongoing increased load shedding is set to continue until mid-August due to a technical fault at the country’s only reliable power plant, Kariba Power Station.

Energy and Power Development Minister Zhemu Soda told a post-cabinet media briefing on Tuesday that one of the eight generators at the power plant lost a thrust bearing that will be corrected after 12 August. Said Soda:

We lost one unit at Kariba power station which produces 125MW, that is unit 6 and the fault that was detected requires that the thrust bearing be taken to South Africa and the bearing will be brought back on August 12.

That is when we will be expecting that unit to be brought back to service. We also had challenges from the Hwange power station. We have since recovered two units at Hwange.

Last week the station was running on two units but it is now back to four units and as of Monday there was a generation of up to 407MW that was coming from Hwange station.

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We also had problems with Harare station three. It was also out of service but it has been brought back to service this afternoon.

Last week, the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) issued a notice warning of prolonged power cuts.

Since then, Zimbabweans have been going for several hours without electricity.

More: The Herald