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HARARE – The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (Zetdc) on Wednesday increased load shedding to stage 2 after the country’s major power import supplier, Eskom of South Africa, started reduced supplies owing to a system failure.
On Wednesday, Eskom announced it would implement stage 2 load shedding from 9 am to 11 pm ‘in order to protect the power system from a total collapse.’
In a tweet, Zetdc said Zimbabwe, which has a 400 megawatt import deal with Eskom, had been badly affected.
“The Eskom alert will affect power imports. As such, load shedding will be implemented at Stage 2 today,” said Zetdc.
ZESA Holdings spokesperson Fullard Gwasira said that Eskom’s black out had exacerbated Zimbabwe’s power shortages.
“What it basically means is that our supplier is facing challenges, meaning they will not be able to meet their end of the bargain. We will mostly be affected with the quantum that has been reduced in terms of exports for Zimbabwe,” Gwasira.
Under Eskom’s 400 MW power deal with Zimbabwe, ‘non- firm exports are reduced to zero and firm exports (50MW) are reduced proportionally in accordance to the load shedding stage’.
According to power generation statistics on the Zimbabwe Power Company website, the country was generating 543 megawatts of electricity as at 16 October 2019 against national demand of more than 2 000 megawatts. – New Ziana
Bongani Ndlovu