- Hwange Thermal Power Station's Unit 8 experiences technical fault, reducing national grid's generation capacity
- Load-shedding increased across Zimbabwe to balance electricity supply and demand
- Declining water levels at Kariba Power Station and faults in new Hwange units signal urgent need for energy diversification, particularly towards solar power
Harare- Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), says the national power grid is currently facing reduced electricity generation capacity due to a technical challenge that occurred at the Hwange Thermal Power Station's Unit 8 over the weekend.
As a result of this generation shortfall, ZESA has had to implement increased load-shedding across the country to balance electricity supply and demand.
The reduced generation on Friday last week saw output drop to 897 megawatts, with Hwange contributing just 635 megawatts, far below its typical output of 1,000 megawatts.
However, the situation has improved slightly, with output increasing to 780 megawatts today, bringing the total output to 1,042 megawatts, still below the usual 1,200 or 1,300 megawatts.
Despite this improvement, the country is still experiencing massive blackouts, with outages lasting over 12 hours.
Zimbabwe's power demand has risen to around 2,000 megawatts, while the mining sector's demand has reached 2,600 megawatts, without factoring in the manufacturing, services, and housing utilities.
This growing demand, coupled with the technical challenges at Hwange, is exacerbating the country's electricity crisis.
Further compounding the issue, water levels at the Kariba Power Station have plummeted to a critical 9.46% as of August 19th, 2024, a stark contrast to the 27.89% recorded last year. This decline has resulted in a devastating reduction in usable live storage for power generation, shrinking from 18.07 BCM to just 6.12 BCM.
With the newly constructed units 7 and 8 at Hwange already experiencing faults, and Kariba being affected by the impacts of climate change, this situation signals the urgent need for Zimbabwe to diversify its energy mix, with a focus on harnessing the country's solar energy potential.
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