ZESCO has attributed the recent spate of load-shedding in the country to increased consumption and load demand associated with the winter weather and increased economic activities.
Zesco senior manager for marketing and public relations, Lucy Zimba said there was increased consumption during this time of the year because customers tended to use more heating appliances in homes and industries.
Ms Zimba said in Lusaka yesterday that the company was usually faced with the challenge of meeting high demand during the winter months, hence the relative load-shedding exercise.
“This is a winter month and consumption tends to be more than usual for most customers and we have to do load-shedding sometimes,” she said.
She said sometimes there were unexpected disturbances in supply when there was a problem on the network, but stated that the company had not recorded any major utility system failure lately.
Zesco promised to ease load-shedding to Lusaka customers after replacement of the Leopards Hill transformer, but the facility was constrained because of high demand owing to increased economic activities.
The company is undertaking the upgrade of its generation capacity and is currently carrying out the Kariba North Bank extension project to add 360 megawatts to the existing 360 megawatts at the station.
She said there was no major load-shedding in most cases and Zesco was making sure, whenever need-be, load-shedding was spread to avoid disadvantaging some customers more than others.
Ms Zimba said the company had been publishing the load-shedding schedules in the media so that people knew when to expect some areas to be off-supply, which they had been demanding from Zesco.
On Tuesday evening, company managing director Ernest Mupwaya, when asked about the possibility of Zesco increasing importation of electricity instead of load-shedding, said all the countries in the region were facing difficulties.
[Times of Zambia
So what happens to the world cup. ZESCO under MMD has performed very badly. Both are on the out anyway
in 2010 electricity should not be a privilege but a right. without energy there can be no work, that is a fact!!
i would like zesco to back the claims up with certified data, they claim increased consumption during winter. but most zambian houses don’t have central heating/air conditioners. so how excatly does the increased consumption come about?
on the increase in economic activites how is it years back when the mines were running on full capacity and many of industries were still working we did not have a problem of load shedding?
zesco needs to provide us with accurate figures showing if there has been an increase in demand in the last say 20 years!! because from where am standing it seems these guys are feeding us bullshit!!
We know that Zesco has started exporting Electricity to south Africa due to the world cup.this is what it is when people think of themselves and not others.Zambians lets wake up aand do something about the increase in Zesco tariffs.
In January this year, Zesco entered into an agreement with Eskom (ba Zesco ba ku South Africa) to supply them with power for the duration of the World Cup. That means load-shedding will simply get worse. That also means Zambians will not be able to enjoy the World Cup at all. Apparently the South Africans need power more than the Zambian citizens do!!!
So if you live in Zambia, consider moving to Kalundu, Kabulonga, Rhodes Park, or some place like that where the rich and powerful live. But if you are a regular citizen, then forget the World Cup.
Just do a google search of “Zambia exports power to South Africa” you will understand why we have load-shedding pa Zed.
A shame and a disgrace – most people use mbaula in winter so that’s a lame excuse.
Why should ZESCO remain stagnant if the industrial sector (which needs power to operate) is booming? Where does Lucy expect these companies to get their power from?
The idea of exporting stuff to SA when there’s none at home is sad. Last year the same thing happened with the cement, creating a shortage. We need to export our goods, but can’t we at least expand our infrastructure first? :-w