Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Gloria Magombo on Tuesday said the commissioning of two new units at Hwange Thermal Power Station will take time.
These two new units will add 600MW to the national grid, but it may not happen soon.
Addressing the media after a Cabinet meeting in Harare yesterday, Magombo said:
Commissioning of a plant is not an event, it’s a process. When we talk about commissioning Hwange 7, each part has to be commissioned independently and certified as working 100%, before they move on to the next one.
If there’s something not working properly, they have to stop, look at it, and correct it. As they do that, they look at the critical path in terms of when they can put that unit on the grid.
She said the other part of commissioning is the construction of transmission power lines including a 400km line from Hwange to Bulawayo’s Insukamini sub-station.
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Meanwhile, On Tuesday, the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) was generating only 494MW from its five power stations located in Bulawayo, Munyati, Harare, Hwange and Kariba.
On the same day, Zimbabwe was importing 50MW from Mozambique’s HCB, up to 169MW from ESKOM, 100MW from Zambia’s ZESCO, and 10MW from EDM in Mozambique.
Magombo said the country has agreed with EDM to increase supplies to 50MW, while there is an agreement for a further 150MW from Mozambique.
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