Published by the government of Zimbabwe
10 January 2008
Harare — Load shedding has become more frequent after Zesa had to shut down generators at Hwange Thermal Power Station because it did not have enough diesel to fire the wet coal.
Ageing equipment that is being affected by the incessant rains pounding Harare has also compounded power problems in the city as faults increase.
Zesa Holdings spokesperson Mr Fullard Gwasira said the generation problems had resulted in increased load shedding in the city, towns and farming areas.
"Zesa has been experiencing generation challenges at HPC which have resulted in more load shedding in the country than the publicised schedule. Because of rains we have been using wet coal and this requires a lot of diesel to stabilise the fire. This then forced HPC to fire only a single unit reducing power output from the station to 80 megawatts," he said.
Mr Gwasira said the situation was likely to improve from today as HPC was expected to fire another unit yesterday night after receiving diesel from the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe.
"We expect the unit to be fired this evening (yesterday) to make a combined output of 170 megawatts. The introduction of the second unit will witness a reduction in load shedding."
He said the power outages had not only affected Harare but also Mutare, Chipinge, Bindura and Kwekwe.
Mr Gwasira said in cases where some areas have been without electricity for more than three days that should be attributed to faults on power cables.
"Areas that have gone for more than four days without power could be a result of faults on power cables or transformers. The cables in the city are old and have a lot of patches and joints that are absorbing water leading to short circuits. This has also led to an increase in power outages."
He said Zesa engineers were working on the faults although lack of capital was affecting their progress.
"There are some areas that we have on our books that are awaiting some repair or that need new transformers. We are however working around the clock to attend to the problems".
Currently, Zesa is getting only 75 Megawatts from Hidroelectrica de Mozambique and Electrica de Mozambique.
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