'Zesa exporting power in the evenings,' says official

Power utility, Zesa Holdings is exporting power to two neighbouring countries in the evenings when demand is low, an official has said.

Zimbabwe has a power deficit of up to 800MW, but produces a surplus in the evenings, which is sold to Namibia and at times to Snel, the power utility, for the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Electricity trading and operations manager at Zesa Holdings' National Control Centre (NCC) Mr John Diya said while the country faced a deficit during the peak hours, supply at most times exceeded demand after 2100 hours.

The NCC, which is linked to all of the country's power stations as well as regional power utilities, plays the critical role of balancing power supply and demand through implementing load shedding.

Zesa Holdings says peak times for demand are from 0600 hours to 0900 hours as well as 1800 hours to 2100 hours.

When there is low demand the power utility exports power to other countries. Engineer Diya said Zimbabwe was currently only importing power from Mozambique.

"We have not been getting power for the past two years from Snel, they are actually buying power from us in the evenings," he said.

He said the country could not get power from regional utilities to meet the deficit as they were also struggling to meet demand.