Energy Minister Makozo Chikote, has announced ZESCO’s resumption of three hours of stable electricity supply following the return of Maamba’s full 300MW generation to the grid.
Maamba Energy Limited (Maamba) had shut down its two by 150MW units one after the other for routine maintenance works in September.
Speaking yesterday during a national update on the energy crisis, Chikote said the ongoing load shedding hours were expected to reduce as the government continues implementing interventions to address the power shortage.
“I am pleased to announce that as of 1st October 2024, the works at the power plant have been completed and the plant is back in full operation,” Chikote said.
He also disclosed that the technical faults on the power interconnector with Namibia, which impeded ZESCO’s power importation had also been resolved.
“During September, the country’s imports were affected by technical faults on the power transmission line linking Zambia and Namibia. As of today, I am again pleased to announce that this fault has been rectified and our power imports have normalized.”
During the same update, ZESCO announced that it had started receiving 400MW of power from South Africa’s electricity utility Eskom.
“As of 1st October, we have started receiving power imports from Eskom. For us to maintain stability we need some reasonable quantity. Going forward with these inflows of import we shall maintain stable and consistent supply”, said ZESCO’s Director of Transmission, Operation and Trade, Justin Loongo.
Chikote said September was the most difficult month yet regarding electricity supply when the country experienced rolling black-outs for days.
While acknowledging that three hours of power supply is not the best or something the government was happy about, Chikote stated that the government would continue to pursue other alternatives of providing solutions to the energy crisis to rescue the economy.
ZESCO Managing Director Victor Mapani said the company is generating 1,087MW against a demand of 2,400MW, and that ZESCO had engaged in developing other sources of energy such as geothermal power.
ZESCO relies heavily on hydroelectricity generation and has been dogged by supply constraints as a result of the El Nino-induced drought, which has contributed to the dwindled water flows into the Lake Kariba dam.
This has severely impacted power generation, resulting in the company effecting days-long power cuts daily across retail users.
