ZESA sets aside US$12m to boost electricity imports
....as major Hwange units go offline
STAFF WRITER
ZESA Holdings has set aside US$12 million to ramp up electricity imports from the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) as the utility races to shield consumers from potential festive-season blackouts while two of Hwange Power Station’s flagship units undergo major maintenance.
The critical 35-day Class C overhaul on Unit 8, which begins this week and will be followed by similar work on Unit 7, will temporarily strip a significant portion of Zimbabwe’s baseload capacity — forcing the power utility to lean heavily on regional imports and carefully optimised domestic generation to stabilise supply.
Addressing the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Energy and Power Development in Hwange on Saturday, ZESA acting chief executive Engineer Cletus Nyachowe said the financing package was crafted to cushion households and industry from intensified load-shedding.
“We have put together a fund, some US$12 million, and we will use this for the Southern African Power Pool,” said Engineer Nyachowe. “So, this Power Pool energy is traded, and we will be buying energy on the day-ahead market. So, it is like a stock exchange. You bid for energy that you want tomorrow, and when you get it, you pay.”
The mechanism gives ZESA real-time flexibility to secure power according to daily and weekly demand patterns — a critical buffer during the temporary loss of Units 7 and 8, which were commissioned in 2023 and now anchor the national grid, providing more than half of Zimbabwe’s baseload supply.
Engineers familiar with the Hwange expansion said the upcoming Class C maintenance is a deep technical intervention designed to restore the units to optimal design performance and eliminate risks of catastrophic failure. Once Unit 8’s 35-day programme is complete, Unit 7 will be taken offline under a staggered schedule aimed at minimising disruption to the grid.
Beyond imports, Engineer Nyachowe said ZESA is also leveraging disciplined hydrological management at Kariba to sustain domestic output. “To manage our water consumption in Kariba, we get allocated — this year it was 14 billion cubic meters,” he said. “So, we followed the consumption pattern, which then saved water for us to boost production in Kariba. So, that will improve our production and reduce the level of load-shedding during this period.”
He also acknowledged the financial strain caused by the current domestic tariff structure, stressing that protecting household consumers remains central to ZESA’s planning. A more stable local currency, he added, would significantly strengthen the utility’s capacity to raise foreign currency for imports, maintenance, and long-term system upgrades.
