Peter Chibwe Kapala bringing 6-hour load-shedding from Thursday, 15th December, 2022
Felix Chipota Mutati with Paul Monde Shalala and Peter Chibwe Kapala
By Rainbow Newspaper Zambia Limited (RNZL) Parliamentary Journalist
Friday, 2nd December, 2022
ENERGY Minister Peter Chibwe Kapala (PCK) has announced that, effective December 15, 2022, a Thursday, Zesco will begin electricity load-shedding for a period of six (6) hours each day for residential houses.
Mr. Kapala says the six-hours of load-shedding daily is a worst case scenario and that ZESCO could only be load-shesding for two hours.
Kapala says load management is owing to the decision to rationalise water for power generation from Lake Kariba, which has witnessed decreasing inflow of water from mainstream Zambezi River and its tributaries.
Mr. Kapala has told Parliament in a Friday, 15th December, 2022 Ministerial Statement that owing to reduced water levels at Kariba Dam, the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) directed Zesco to produce only a maximum of 800 megawatts of power at the North Bank Hydro Power Station and for the Zimbabwean power utility, on the South Bank, Zimbabwe Power Corporation (ZCP) only 300 megawatts instead of 600 megawatts.
Kapala explains that this will remain so until further review of the substantive hydrological outlook at Kariba is undertaken.
The Energy Minister reiterated that water levels in Lake Kariba was, of November 28th, 2022, at 476.09 metres above sea level, representing 4.12 percent of useable water storage for power generation.
Kapala has thus cautioned that the current water levels in Lake Kariba threatens power generation at both the Kariba North Bank Hydro Power Station, on the Zambian side, and at The South Bank Hydro Power Station, on the Zimbabwean side.
Kapala has told the House that if the current power generation and the subsequent water utilisation continues, at the Kariba complex, referred to as live storage, there will be no sufficient water to generate any more power beyond mid December 2022.
Kapala explains that to this effect Zesco is optimising power generation at all its hydro power stations in order to complement generation from the Kariba North Bank Power Station until mid January 2023 when water inflows are expected to start improving in the Kariba water reservoir.
