The Sunday News
Munyaradzi Musiiwa/Peter Matika, Sunday News Reporters
POWER company Zesa, has recorded its lowest power generation capacity at Kariba in years amid fears that the country’s main source of electricity could be decommissioned this month.
According to statistics posted at Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) website on Friday, Kariba Power Station was producing just 81 Megawatts out of the installed capacity of 1 050 MW. The other power stations were also at below capacity with Harare producing 15 MW while Hwange is only generating 376 MW bringing it to a total of 472MW. Bulawayo and Munyati are off.
In an interview, Zesa Holdings acting group chief executive officer Engineer Patrick Chivaura said there were fears that the Kariba Power Station could be decommissioned due to low water levels. Eng Chivaura said Kariba has dropped to maximum of 190 MW from its designed capacity of 1 050 MW.
Eng Chivaura said provided the rains come early then the power station might not be decommissioned.
“We received good rains a few days back and if we continue to have good rains our hope is that the station will not be decommissioned,” he said.
Zimbabwe is importing supplementary power from South African power utility, Eskom and Mozambican power utility Hydro Cahora Bassa (HCB).
Meanwhile, Zesa has continued to assure customers that its billing system has not changed, saying that charges do not differ and will remain the same at any given day of the month.
“The correct position is that customers can buy the first 50 units at 41 cents, the next 150 units (51-200) at 91 cents and any other purchases beyond the 200 units are charged at $3,87,” read part of the statement, stating that charges apply at any day of a given month.
Last Friday, hundreds of Bulawayo residents thronged the Zesa revenue halls in the city in the mistaken belief that the power utility had a promotion to sell electricity at discounted tariffs on the first day of every month.
