Zimbabwe has been suffering from severe electricity shortages, which are expected to get worse now that the organisation in charge of the nation’s largest dam has declared that water levels are too low to continue power-generating operations.
The largest hydroelectricity supplier’s water levels are at a record low, according to a letter dated November 25 from the Zambezi River Authority, which manages the Kariba Dam, which Zimbabwe and neighbouring Zambia jointly hold. As a result, energy production must cease.
The Kariba South hydropower station had used more water than it was allotted for in 2022, according to the letter, which was seen by news agencies and widely reported in local media. It also stated that the Kariba Dam’s usable storage was only 4.6 percent full.
About 70% of Zimbabwe’s electricity comes from the Kariba South hydropower, which produces much less than its 1,050 megawatt capacity in recent years due to declining water levels brought on severe droughts.
According to the Zimbabwe Power Company website, the Kariba plant has been producing 572 megawatts of the 782 megawatts of electricity produced in the nation.
In a letter to the Zimbabwe Power Company, the authority’s chief executive officer, Munyaradzi Munodawafa, stated that the dam “no longer has any usable water to continue undertaking power generation operations.”
According to Munodawafa, the authority “is left with no alternative” but to “wholly cease” power-generation operations until a review in January, when water levels are anticipated to have increased.
In prior years, the administration has reported low water levels at Kariba Dam during this time before the rainy season, but not enough to halt these activities.
Due to ageing infrastructure that frequently fails, coal-fired power plants, which also produce some electricity, are unreliable, and the country’s solar potential has not yet been sufficiently realised to significantly increase supply. Due to shortages in recent months, households and businesses have frequently gone hours or even days without electricity.
According to a Monday article in the state-run Herald newspaper, if the Hwange power plant expands as planned by year’s end, it might assist alleviate the shortages created by the Kariba plant shutdown.
