Source: Technical fault spawns blackout – herald
Freeman Razemba
Senior Reporter
A TECHNICAL fault at Hwange Power Station has led to a reduction in available power across several regions, coinciding with a fire incident that damaged critical equipment at a substation in Harare.
The situation has resulted in increased load-shedding, affecting various suburbs and industrial areas.
In a statement, Zesa Holdings confirmed the incidents.
“ZESA Holdings would like to advise its valued stakeholders of a technical fault that occurred at Hwange Power Station, resulting in the reduction of available power supplies. This unforeseen incident has necessitated increased load shedding across all customer groups.”
Zesa assured customers that their technical team is actively working to rectify the fault and restore normal operations as quickly as possible, expressing regret for the inconvenience caused.
This setback comes at a time when the repowering of Hwange Thermal Power Station’s ageing Units 1 to 6, under a partnership between Zesa and Jindal Africa, is awaiting final Cabinet approval, amid growing optimism that Zimbabwe could soon stabilise its electricity supply.
The project, structured as a rehabilitate-operate-and-transfer (ROT) agreement, is expected to boost output from Hwange’s old units from 340 megawatts (MW) to 800MW.
In addition to the issues at Hwange, a fire broke out at the Highfield substation in Harare on Sunday night, damaging critical equipment.
This incident has led to power supply interruptions, particularly affecting the southern parts of Harare. Areas impacted include Southerton (industrial and domestic), Workington Industrial, Old and New Ardbennie (including Varun and Steel Brands), Willowvale (industrial), Rugare, Westwood, Lochnivar, Highfield, parts of Waterfalls, parts of Mbare, ZESA Enterprises and ZRP Southerton.
ZETDC has implemented temporary measures to mitigate the impact of the outages. The Workington area is currently being supplied with power from the Kambuzuma substation, and the Willowvale area is receiving power from the Parkridge substation.
“Our teams are working tirelessly to replace the damaged equipment and restore power supplies,” reads the statement.
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