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Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
Zesa is losing about 20 percent of the electricity it generates because of ageing transmission infrastructure, Energy and Power Development Minister Dzikamai Mavhaire said yesterday. He said the parastatal has started work on replacing dilapidated transmission equipment to improve power supply on the national grid.
“Our transmission infrastructure is old and we’ve to rehabilitate the system so that we improve power supply into the national grid. As a result of poor transmission Zesa is losing about 20 percent of electricity,” said Minister Mavhaire
“Even if we focus on rehabilitating power stations without attending to transmission lines, the supply situation in the country will not improve, so work is also in progress to rehabilitate the power transmission lines.”
The minister would not be drawn into revealing how much was required to finance rehabilitation of the transmission lines.
“I don’t have the figures off hand on how much the rehabilitation of transmission lines costs but the project is being done in stages and each stage has a specific allocation of funds,” he said.
Minister Mavhaire also said power trans-mission was being threatened by vandalism and theft of equipment such as copper wires.
The copper wires, he said, were now being replaced with aluminum cables to mitigate the challenge.
Zimbabwe requires about 2,200 megawatts to meet domestic demand but produces about 1,400 megawatts with the deficit partially covered by imports.
Inadequate power supply is one of the major challenges hindering growth of the manufacturing industry.
The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) has licensed about 15 independent power producers to augment efforts in boosting power supply.
In addition to ongoing rehabilitation of existing power plants, establishment of new stations is under way.
The maturity of the multi-million dollar projects is set to enhance domestic self sufficiency with surplus to be sold to the region.
Online Reporter