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Government is pacing up expansion of the country’s electricity generation to keep up with increasing demand, and ensure power shortages do not constrict future economic growth, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
In an interview, Ministry of Energy and Power Development permanent secretary, Dr Gloria Magombo said a number of power generation projects were coming on stream, which should substantially increase domestic electricity supply.
Demand for power was increasing at rates in tandem with economic growth, putting pressure on the country to speed up development of domestic power generation.
At best of times, when all generating units are efficiently in operation, the country has a domestic supply shortfall of 300 megawatts (MW), which increases to 400MW if, and when some of the units were down.
Excluding imports, the deficit goes up to 500MW, a huge gap which Government wants closed to avoid the economy, predicted to remain on the current strong growth trajectory for some time, falling prey to power shortages.
“The country is developing, and developing very fast, and this means we have to provide the power to sustain this growth,” Dr Magombo said.
“Unfortunately, power projects have a long gestation period, but most of what we have lined up will fortunately not take that long to come to fruition,” she added. – New Ziana
Online Reporter