BULAWAYO - Zimbabwe is has more dark days ahead as it emerged that the country was generating far less than half of the power it needs after four units at the Hwange power stations broke down in the last two months.Only two power units are now operational at the station and they produce a mere 190 MW of power. Hwange has the capacity to produce 920 MW of power when all six power units are operational. Zimbabwe needs 2 600 megawatts (MW) of power to operate normally but currently the country’s total power generation is 940 MW. The country imports a further 295 MW of power from neighbouring countries to augment the national output.
Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) spokesperson, Fullard Gwasira, this week said the power utility would release a new load shedding schedule to deal with low power output from energy sources. “At the present moment the power we are generating is quite low and the electricity imports are far below consumers’ needs,” said Gwasira.
It also emerged that all the three thermal power stations in the country are not operational. Munyati, Bulawayo and Harare power stations have a combined potential to generate 500 MW of power.
Gwasira said the country’s solution was for the maintenance of the thermal power stations.
Post published in: News