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Obsolete machinery impedes Zesa productivity

by Staff reporter
08 Oct 2014 at 07:13hrs | Views

THE Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) is losing about 20 percent of the electricity it generates because of ageing transmission infrastructure, a cabinet minister has revealed.

Energy and Power Development Minister Dzikamai Mavhaire yesterday 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," he said.

"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."

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.


Source - Herald