Zimbabwe could plunge into total darkness, Zesa plans to increase tariffs by over 100%

Kariba dam wall

Zimbabwe could soon be plunged into total darkness if water levels in Kariba Dam do not improve soon, Energy minister Samuel Undenge has said.

He told a Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce meeting in the capital yesterday that while power generation at Kariba was already 36 percent below optimum capacity, this was set to slump down even further if the hot weather persisted.

"While Kariba normally produces 750 MW, current capacity stands at 475 MW and we expect that this will have gone down to 285 MW on the back of reports from the Meteorological Department that we are likely to experience a low rainfall season again.

"In light of this, we might be forced to reduce our water consumption at Kariba further, worsening the power situation," Undenge said.

This comes after the national power utility also announced recently that Hwange Thermal Station would undergo maintenance until later this month.

Kariba and Hwange account for 95 percent of Zimbabwe’s 1 300MW daily power output and the shutdown at the latter plant means that the country will produce about a third of its demand, which peaks at 2 200MW — worsening the country’s dire electricity shortages.

The power deficit has seen industry, mines and households going for up to 24 hours at a time without power.

Undenge, whose ministry has come under fire for failing to foresee the initial depletion of Kariba Dam’s water levels, said the government had come up with a solution to plug the deficit, in the event that the country received low rainfalls up to year end.

"The immediate solution to avert a near disaster if we have low rainfall in the next season is to install what are called emergency power plants. These are modules of diesel generators which can be installed in the shortest possible time and we are working on installing them as early as February 2016," he said.

Undenge said the plan was to start with an initial capacity of 200MW, with Cabinet having already given the green light for the implementation of the proposed plan.

But, he also warned that the diesel solution was likely going to lead to a tariff hike.

"I have no doubt that your experiences so far with these generators is that they are convenient but very expensive to run. If you were to put a tariff on them, then certainly this will not be less than $0,35/ kilowatt hour (kWh) whereas our tariff is on average $0,10kWh," he said.

Undenge said Zambia, with which Zimbabwe shared Kariba, had recently imposed a 100 percent tariff hike on consumers.

He also suggested that load shedding had "recorded a noticeable improvement in recent weeks".

"The situation is not all doom and gloom. For example yesterday (Wednesday) we managed to generate 1 125 MW against a demand of 1 615 MW after importing 50 MW from Mozambique Hydro Cahora Bassa (HCB)," he said.

Undenge also urged local companies to import power in the interim and pool resources to build a power supply station, noting that Zimbabwe’s power deficit was only going to be addressed after 2018. Dailynews