Starting with the end in mind

facts are understood then it is up to each individual to assess how best they can cope, going forward into the next four to five years. There has been no meaningful investment in additional power generation since the 1980s. Over the past two and a half decades the population has grown significantly as well as a population drift to the urban areas.
The demand for power is around 1 800 MW at daily peak and this is growing. Local installed operational capacity today is around 1 200 MW – so we have a gap of 30 percent. As Zimbabwe Power Company implements its programme to stabilise and optimise the generation capacity at all its stations over the next 12 months the supply will increase to 1 500 MW – but in the meantime demand will continue to increase.

The only way to close this gap is to install additional capacity and the shortest timeline to achieve this is four years. Customers and stakeholders need to understand this and take whatever steps they can to mitigate against this stunted power capacity. An Energy Forum should be established among major customer groups to facilitate dialogue around this critical aspect of life in Zimbabwe.
Kariba and Hwange
There has been a very positive response to the “Expression of Interest” for the expansion at both Kariba and Hwange. The “Expressions of Interest” closed in mid-September and our team of Hatch, KPMG

Consortium and management are reviewing the documents before making recommendations to the State Procurement Board. This will then be followed by a formal tender to pre-qualified companies.
To ensure that the momentum is maintained it is vital that the Independent Regulator is put in place outside of the Ministry and that this new body engenders the confidence of potential investors.

Small Thermals
WAPCOS (an Indian consultancy group in the power sector) will finish the feasibility studies to re-power the boilers at the small thermal stations. We then intend looking for funding/joint venture partners to help us carry out these upgrades.

Recent History and the Current Situation
The month of September has not been a good month for ZPC and hence for the customer. Many of us over the last week or so, have experienced up to five consecutive days of load shedding from 5am to 10pm.

Why?
It is of course important to note that ZETDC (Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company) hold the balancing of supply and demand/ (load shedding) responsibility.
They have a load shedding plan, which is in turn based on their expectation of power supply from ZPC as well regional power utilities. ZETDC are forced to deviate from this plan when there is a sudden loss of power from their suppliers – power generation outages at times occur without warning and this throws out the planned load shedding regime.

There are four main themes that run through the low generation this month and particularly over the last 10 days, namely: sluggish and below par (in my view) performance of the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), underperformance of the procurement and logistic chain (both in-house and external suppliers), ongoing cash flow challenges (ZPC have only received approximately 80 percent payment this year for the energy it has generated and sent out, as payment of imports are given precedence) and finally the ongoing occurrence of regional power swings( surges) into our transmission systems where protection is insufficiently robust.

Kariba Power Station has been generating at full capacity for much of the last two years except for planned shut downs. In June this year a failure occurred in the generator winding of Unit 2. These are copper windings as thick as one’s arm. It can only be replaced by the OEM who have to design and outsource the replacement section.
During this outage a crack was found in one of the turbine blades which only the OEM can repair. This repair work is under way and is scheduled for completion before mid-October.

In my view the OEM did not, and could not be encouraged to, respond to our crisis with the urgency demanded by our unique situation or with the respect that a 30-year relationship deserves.
Our Managing Director has been in Europe this week to discuss this with the OEM. During the week ending 25th September the protection on Units 3 and 4 tripped. Unit 4 was isolated from the transformer, which it shares with Unit 3. Unit 3 was then brought back into service.

After meticulous trouble shooting it was found that switch gear and control devices, which were replaced by another OEM during our maintenance shut downs earlier this year, had failed. Repairs to these devices are underway under guidance of the OEM from Europe.
So in summary, Kariba has been down to four units for the last 10 days with the station expected to return to full capacity by mid-October.