Online Reporter
Sikhumbuzo Moyo, [email protected]
ZESA Holdings has attributed Monday’s nationwide power outage to a major fault on the Warren–Alaska 330kV transmission line, saying the incident destabilised the national grid, disrupted regional power interconnections and triggered the collapse of the country’s electricity system.
In a technical update issued on Monday night, the power utility said the fault occurred at 6.24pm, causing severe voltage instability and under-frequency that resulted in the loss of local electricity generation and widespread blackouts across Zimbabwe.
The outage affected homes, businesses, industries and public services nationwide before restoration efforts commenced later in the evening.
According to ZESA, restoration work began at 7.01pm, with engineers progressively restoring electricity supplies using imports from South Africa’s Eskom and Mozambique’s Hydro Cahora Bassa, alongside generation from Kariba Power Station and Hwange Power Station Units 1, 2 and 3.
“By 2200 hours, power had been successfully restored to most of our bulk supply points across the country,” said ZESA.
The utility said its technical teams continued working through the night to synchronise the remaining generating units at Hwange Power Station while also carrying out repairs at the Warren Substation, which supplies parts of Harare.
ZESA apologised to customers for the inconvenience caused by what it described as an unprecedented system disturbance and assured the nation that engineers were working tirelessly to restore normal electricity supplies to all remaining affected areas.
The latest update comes after millions of Zimbabweans were left without electricity on Monday evening following the sudden collapse of the national grid, with power restoration beginning in phases later that night.
