THE major power blackout that hit Zimbabwe on Tuesday and Wednesday was reportedly a result of a massive explosion at Hwange Power Station’s power generation Unit 4 on Tuesday, NewsDay Weekender has been informed.
Hwange, with an installed capacity of 920 megawatts (MW),
produced zero power following the Tuesday explosion, but peaked to 238MW on
Thursday, according the Zesa Holdings subsidiary Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC)’s
website.
The situation at Hwange has worsened the country’s already
desperate power situation that has seen consumers enduring long power outages
lasting more than 12 hours per day.
“There was a loud sound and a huge fireball, luckily no one
was hurt. However, it is the reason why the power system was disrupted,” a
source at Hwange told NewsDay Weekender.
The cause of the explosion is, however, still unknown.
Speaking during Thursday’s Cabinet briefing, Energy and
Power Development secretary Gloria Magombo described the Hwange fault as a
system loss.
“On Tuesday we had power generation loss from Hwange. We
were producing power before 10.25am when we had a system loss,” Magombo said.
When contacted for comment on Thursday, Zesa spokesperson
George Manyaya said: “We will be releasing an update soon.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the power utility released a statement
blaming the nationwide outage to an “abrupt system disturbance linking Harare
and Kariba”.
However, information obtained from Zesa’s website showed
that Hwange Power Station did not produce any electricity on Tuesday.
Yesterday, according to the ZPC website, Hwange power
station was generating just 245MW, while other power stations Harare, Bulawayo,
Munyati and Kariba were generating 11MW, 0MW, 14MW and 854MW, respectively, to
bring a total of 1 124MW, against a peak demand of 2 200 MW.
Economists said the power outages are seriously affecting
industry, which is being forced to cut short their operating hours, while the
intermittent power cuts have also affected plant and machinery, some of which
need constant power supply.
Government blames the power outages on an increase in
economic activities, especially in agriculture, the mining sector as well as
the manufacturing sector.
In a statement earlier this week, another Zesa subsidiary,
the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), said
power outages were due to technical challenges being faced in Hwange and Kariba
and import constraints.
“ZETDC would like to advise its valued customers that there
is increased load curtailment from September 24, 2022. This is due to technical
challenges being experienced at our Kariba and Hwange Power Stations as well as
import constraints.
“The utility is, therefore, conducting a maintenance
exercise to ensure full restoration of service,” read the statement.
Speaking at a Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera)
stakeholder consultative workshop in Harare earlier this month, ZETDC acting
managing director engineer Howard Choga said the entity was facing import
challenges because regional partners now required payments upfront.
Zera has over the past five years licensed over 100 small
independent power producers projects with a capacity to generate around 1
300MW, but most of them are yet to come on stream.
One such project is the US$183 million Gwanda solar project
awarded to controversial businessman Wicknell Chivayo. Newsday
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