Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
POWER generation at the Hwange Thermal Station has ground to halt due to a technical glitch resulting in the country’s electricity generation going down to 801 megawatts from about 1,200 megawatts.

Hwange Thermal is the largest power plant in the country with a generation capacity of 920 megawatts followed by Kariba Hydro Power Station at 750 megawatts.

The temporary shutdown at Hwange is set to worsen power outages and cripple operations in productive sectors of the economy.

Zimbabwe has an average national demand of 2,200 megawatts that it cannot meet due to obsolete equipment at its five existing power stations.

As at April 27, Bulawayo and Munyati Thermal Power Stations were producing 24 megawatts each while Harare Thermal Power Station and Kariba Hydro Power Station produced 30 megawatts and 723 megawatts respectively.

According to the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC), the giant power plant has been shut down following the loss of a T1A transformer after backup protection.

“This led to loss of auxiliary supplies on units 2 and 3 that were in service and subsequently took them out. Unit 1 was taken out of service on April 23 at 19.59HRS following a fire incident on BC2 burner. Inspections are in progress to identify damaged cables,” said ZPC in its daily power update.

“Unit 4 was taken out of service on April 25 at 17.08HRS due to LP front shaft vibrations and boiler tube leaks. Works are still in progress.”

The power utility said unit 5 had been down due to poor vacuum since February 5, 2015 at 12.31HRS and “on attempting to return to service, it developed governor challenges”.

Repair works were being undertaken on the steam pipe hangers, turbine thrust pads as well as other opportunistic maintenance jobs, it said adding, unit 6 was taken out of service on April 24 due to a boiler tube leak.

“Works have been completed and preparations to bring the unit back . . . are in progress,” said ZPC.

The thermal power stations — Harare, Bulawayo and Munyati are currently producing 30MW 24MW and 24MW respectively. This is against installed capacity of 75MW, 90MW and 100MW.

ZPC director Noah Gwariro has said power generation at Harare Power Station will double from 30MW to 60MW by the end of this month on expected completion of repairs to one of its turbo alternators.

Last year, the government contracted Sino-Hydro to build two units at the country’s largest power plant at a cost of $1.5 billion.

The project will add 600MW onto the national grid.

The expansion project at Hwange is expected to be completed in 42 months from commencement date, according to the contractor.

Under the deal, ZPC will get $1.17 billion or 80 percent of the funds for the plant through concessionary funding from China Exim Bank while the same institution will provide the balance at commercial rates.

he government has embarked on massive power generation projects that will see the country generate more than 3,500MW in the next five to six years.

The 300MW Kariba South expansion is already underway at a cost of more than $500 million to be completed in 2018.

Some of the projects in the pipeline include the 600MW power plant to be constructed by China Africa Sunlight Energy in the Gwayi area of Lupane, the 800MW Batoka Gorge hydro power project as well as renewable projects in solar and gas.