Measures to stabilise electricity supply outlined

EFFORTS to stabilise electricity supply are ongoing, with the Government coming up with a raft of measures such as gradually reviewing the tariff upwards so that funds are available for maintenance, imports and expansion, expediting the commissioning of the new Hwange Power Station units, and maintaining old thermal power stations, Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube has said.

Independent power producers are expected to play a key role in addressing the expansion of generation capacity.

Yesterday, a reliable source at Zesa said the commissioning of Hwange’s Unit 7 was now over 95 percent complete, with the technical commissioning having been done on November 5, but the final synchronisation of the systems is expected to start any day.

Since the technical commissioning of Unit 7 started, engineers have not reported any challenges.

The engineers have asked for patience so they deliver a quality product to avoid technical problems in the near future.

After the synchronisation of the system, where electricity would be channelled to the national grid on phased basis as part of the tests, commercial commissioning of the project will then be done.

Commercial commissioning is when electricity would be fed into the grid routinely. All these stages should be completed in the next few weeks.

The extreme caution by technicians at Hwange Power Station follows the collapse of a duct at Kusile, South Africa’s newest coal-fired electricity plant, resulting in one of the six generating units being shut down.

The Kusile plant had been under construction since 2008 and is expected to cost about R232 billion rand (US$12,7 billion). The affected unit is now expected to remain offline “for a few months” and Zesa does not want a Zimbabwean example of this preventable problem.

Zimbabwe has been facing electricity supply challenges, attributed to depressed generation at thermal power stations, low electricity production at the Kariba Power Station due to low water levels and vandalism of distribution infrastructure.

In the 2023 National Budget, Prof Ncube said availability of enough water for electricity generation at Kariba Dam during the present season “remains a risk that could force the Zambezi River Authority to reduce water allocation to Kariba Hydro Power Station, thereby substantially reducing electricity generation capacity”.