NEW: “Kariba Power Station is not shutting down”

Online Reporter

KARIBA Power Station will not shut down completely but will continue to generate about 300 megawatts (MW) daily pending a review of the water situation in the dam next year, a Cabinet Minister has said.

The reduction of capacity at Kariba Hydro Power Station has resulted in the loss of 300MW.

Energy and Power Development Minister Soda Zhemu said Government has come up with immediate measures to avert the current power challenges.

The measures include increased imports, increasing production from local power generation installations, demand management and commissioning of Hwange Unit 7.

“In the immediate term, Government has come up with measures through its utility ZESA and IPPs to increase imports from the region.

“Bilaterally, ZESA is currently negotiating for additional imports from the current suppliers. More power will also be secured through the SAPP (Southern African Power Pool) market,” he said.

“ZPC will ramp up production at Hwange Power Station to average 400MW and small thermals are expected to produce a combined total of 45MW.

“We will give support to all IPPs to enable them to produce at maximum capacity.”

Unit 7, he said, is undergoing commissioning and will start feeding power into the grid later this month.

The commissioning of Unit 8 will follow within the first three months of next year.

Minister Zhemu urged consumers to reduce their load by employing energy conservation and efficiency measures.

Net metering and adoption of solar systems are the other measures that Government is employing.

“Through Statutory Instrument 38 of 2022, net-metering regulations were amended to exempt from licensing a capacity of up to 5MW. This incentive is expected to result in increased internal generation as companies set up their solar generation systems.

“Caledonia Mine (12 MW), Richo Solar (1,3MW) and Guruve (1,2MW) will soon be feeding into the national grid,” added Minister Zhemu.