Chronicle Editor
Nqobile Bhebhe, Senior Business Reporter
THE ongoing power challenges in South Africa will not affect electricity imports from ESKOM as the state-run power utility will continue supplying power to Zimbabwe in line with contractual agreements, Energy and Power Development Minister, Zhemu Soda, has said.
Eskom is implementing crippling rolling blackouts on records, leaving households in the dark, disrupting manufacturing, and hurting businesses of all sizes.
In February, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster to fight a paralyzing power crisis that in recent months has included daily rolling power cuts.
During the National Assembly oral answers to questions without notice this week, Minister Zhemu said the country is importing 170 megawatts from South Africa’s power utility, Eskom.
“We are getting a capacity of around 170 megawatts from South Africa and the contract still subsists despite the power supply situation that is in South Africa, but we are still able to obtain power supply from South Africa,” he said.
Minister Zhemu said the Government has put in place mitigation measures in place in the event that South Africa one day gets to a situation where they will not be able to give export power to Zimbabwe.
He said Zimbabwe has embarked on the expansion of the Hwange Power Station which will result in an additional power supply of around 600 megawatts from Units 7 and 8.
“Last week alone, in this House, I indicated the readiness of Unit 7 from which we will be getting 300 megawatts before the end of this month and another unit will be following after a month to give us a total of 600 megawatts being fed into the grid,” he said.
“We also have plans to rehabilitate the existing units at Hwange Power Station, that is, Units 1 to 6 to get the units back to the installed capacity of 920 megawatts.
“Even if we are caught up with what is happening in South Africa maybe in a month or two, we are hoping that the capacity will be replaced with our internally generated power which we will get from the expansion project in Hwange.”
Online Reporter