HARARE Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe have agreed to develop a US$225 million power line that would allow an extra 600 megawatts to be transmitted around the region, an official with the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) has said.Musara Beta from ZESA last week told delegates at a power conference hosted by Southern Africa Power Pool [SAPP] in Zambia that the project, known as Zizabona, would be completed in the last quarter of 2010.
ZESA is one of the four promoters of the project along with Zambia’s ZESCO, Nampower of Namibia and the Botswana Power Company.
The four utilities will develop, build and own the transmission infrastructure. This project seeks to reduce losses and congestion on the SAPP central corridor,” said Beta.
He said the project would help the four countries to boost the amount of power they generate in coming years. It would also ease congestion on the transmission corridor to South Africa.
In addition, Zizabona would allow the four countries to export more power and to trade energy with one another via a regional power pool. The project would also allow easier transmission of hydropower from the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Africa and the rest of the region.
The Zizabona transmission line will extend from the Hwange substation to a switching station near Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, into Livingstone, Zambia. The line will also link Pandamatenga in Botswana and the Zambezi substation in Namibia.
The proposed Central Transmission Corridor (CTC) project is to be jointly developed by ZESA, which would have a 20 per cent shareholding in the venture, while prospective private investors would take up the additional 80 per cent. Zimbabwe is at the moment faced with serious power shortages, a development that has seen ZESA embarking on power outages that are beyond the normal load shedding schedule in most parts of the country.
Post published in: Economy