It has been a dreadful 10 or so months for most Zimbabweans as they have had to spend up to 18 hours or even more in the dark due to degraded power generation at Kariba.
This has had an impact on business productivity as businesses have had to either invest significant amounts of money in solar or back up (more like primary power) sources such as generators. Affected businesses include retailers and miners with the latter seeing a drop in production which has meant less foreign currency and even more economic woes for the country.
The good news according to Zambezi River Authority (ZRA), is that two points along the Zambezi River which gauge water flow into the lake indicate that there is a significant inflows into the lack with lake water levels rising. This brings hope that powercuts might soon ease a bit and allow businesses to recover somewhat.
Throughout this week of February, the Zambezi River flow at Victoria Falls has continued to rise quite steadily above last year’s flows during the same period by 25 per cent. However, this is still below the long term average by 29 per cent.
The flow in the Zambezi River at Chavuma shot up by 73 cubic meters per second between the 5th and 6th of February, indicating intense runoff on the Zambezi headwaters. The flow is still soaring above the long term average by 41 per cent and last year’s flows by 189 per cent.
ZRA statement on the issue
Meanwhile Hwange’s thermal expansion is reported to be progressing at such a pace that soon 600MW will be added to the grid:
We are now in the 19th month and as I have already indicated Unit 7 start-up is expected on the 25th of April that’s is the initial commissioning which will run for 6 months and then after the pre-commissioning will then have the commercial operation date around October 2021
ZBC News on Hwange Thermal expansion
Leave A Comment