The Sunday Mail
Zambia’s overuse of the world’s biggest man-made reservoir to generate electricity has depleted its water levels, according to Guy Scott, the Zambian former vice president who led the country for three months until January this year. His comments contradict Zambian government assertions that drought is to blame for the country’s worst-ever power crisis.
Lake Kariba straddles Zambia’s border with Zimbabwe, generating hydropower for both southern African countries. Poor oversight has allowed both nations to compete in over-exploiting this source of electricity, Scott said, driving water levels down to 29 percent of capacity from 70 percent a year ago.
“What we have now is a weak regulator sitting between two puppies drinking milk from the same saucer,” Scott, who is still a Member of Parliament, told lawmakers in the capital Lusaka, according to a transcript posted on Parliament’s website Wednesday. “If one does not lick fast enough, it will not get as much as the other one.”
Kariba’s low water levels have compelled both countries to cut electricity generation and have led to rotating power cuts that last as long as 14 hours a day. Zambia’s energy shortage has also led to mine suspensions in Africa’s second-largest producer of copper and there are thousands of planned job cuts. It has also contributed to this year’s 47 percent depreciation of the kwacha, the world’s worst-performing currency against the dollar.
Zambia aggravated the situation at Kariba by continuously running a 360-megawatt hydropower expansion, designed only to operate for 3,5 hours a day during peak demand, said Scott, who became acting President when Michael Sata died in October. Scott officially opened the plant, which increased generating capacity on the Zambian side of the dam by 50 percent, in August last year.
“I am the one who turned it on and I said, ‘Is there enough water for this?’ It was a huge contraption and everybody said ‘yes,’” he told lawmakers on September 23.
“When I went to sleep at the hotel down from the Kariba Dam, all night and morning the water gushed past. Once they had their toy, they pushed the button, turned it on and left it, and down went the water.”
Meagre water levels at Kariba and at the Kafue Gorge power station, which account for nearly 90 percent of the country’s generation capacity, mean Zambia could only supply an average of half of normal peak power demand in September, Mines and Energy Minister Christopher Yaluma said this month. Total installed generation capacity from all power plants is 2 300 megawatts, according to Zesco, the state-owned power supplier.
While data from Zesco show that water inflows from the Zambezi river were lower than previous years, the company has also used more water than it is allocated, figures in a September 5 statement from the utility indicate.
The Zambezi River Authority, which regulates Kariba and is run by the two countries’ governments, allocated Zesco water to generate 1 944 gigawatt hours of electricity from April through September, according to the statement. Instead, it produced 2 971 gigawatt hours, 46 percent more than it was supposed to.
Zambia uses hydroelectricity for more than 95 percent of its power needs. Kariba North Bank power station had fewer than 70 days from September 5 before it exhausted its water allocation, Zesco said in a statement that day.
Zambia’s power shortages and the effects of climate change are “inextricably inseparable”, President Edgar Lungu, who won the January elections to replace Sata, said in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
Munyaradzi Munodawafa, chief executive officer of the Zambezi River Authority, didn’t answer two calls to his mobile phone seeking comment.
“It is very difficult to share hydroelectric facilities with other countries,” Scott said. “It is a well-known problem throughout the world and I think it needs to be addressed.” – Bloomberg.com
