Zimbabwe Has 450 Megawatts Electricity Deficit - Magombo

Zimbabwe requires electricity imports of between 200 megawatts (MW) and 450MW daily from regional utilities to meet its power deficit.

This was said by the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Gloria Magombo. She said:

Zimbabwe imports electricity from regional utilities (Eskom of South Africa, HCB of Mozambique and ZESCO of Zambia) to augment its internal generation capacity.

With a maximum demand of between 1700MW to 1850MW against an internal generation capacity of 1400MW, the country imports between 200MW and 450MW to meet this deficit.

The imports are, however, on a firm and non-firm basis and also depend on the level of internal systems demand and status/availability of generation units, especially at Hwange Power Station.

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The electricity challenges currently bedeviling the country were a result of many factors, among them delayed commissioning of new generation capacity, especially at Hwange, failure to maintain and rehabilitate existing infrastructure, and failure to attract significant investments through the private sector, according to Magombo.

She said during off-peak periods when demand is low, some units at Kariba Power Station (peaking power plant) are shut down and at that time no imports will be required.

Magombo urged local businesses to capitalise on the power deficit to invest in power projects. | NewsDay