Lunsemfwa Hydro Power Company Limited LHPC has shut down its Lunsemfwa power plant creating a loss of Nine Million United States dollars (US$ 9 million).
LHPC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Katai Kachasa said the plant has been closed due to poor rainfall which has resulted in less water accumulation in the river catchment areas.
Mr Kachasa said this when he addressed a press briefing in Kabwe on the complex update of the Hydro power company’s financial year operations.
The CEO however said that the company has safeguarded and maintained its 58 Lunsemfwa power station workers despite the shutdown.
Lunsemfwa Hydro-power Company exports its generated energy to ZESCO.
levels in the Dam
levels in the Dam
it doesn’t export power to ZESCO but sells power to ZESCO
This is pure uchimbwi. Surely those plant engineers and managers should have known about this problem during the design stages of the plant to have put a contingency plan in place to avoid this shut down.
Now they have to consult a hydro-geologist to advise them on how to keep dam from drying up.
The best solution is build a pumped hydro electric station, which when the demand for power is low, some of the power is used to pump water back into the reservior to keep the water in the dam at optimal level all the time.
ok is mulungushi powerstation still working ba LT.
Wanzelu: I follow up to “this shutdown”. Indeed even a cursory SWOT on the back if some envelope would have highlighted this risk. How professional are these guys??
But I don’t follow on the pump arrangement: when demand for power is low, don’t they just use the floodgates to retain the water on the tide side of the dam? They can’t produce power so that they power up an array of pumps to pump back water to the tide side! Energy losses would make that a waste of money. The point to hammer home is what did their feasibility study say they should do in such an eventuality? Close company and scamper? Or maybe they never even did one!
All due to climate change .
Time to do maintenance. That sieve along the canal is looking sub-standard to me.
Now Lunsemfwa Hydro Power Company Limited LHPC are lauding why the did not hire a Hydro geologist in the first place. Zambian Engineers do something.
When something does not make sense there must be an alternative reason!
I reckon, they are going to sell it to some investor who has gov’t official connections and interest in hydro power. They will sell it for a pittance and the investor will ‘export’ power elsewhere and not pay any tax in Zambia.
Well look what happened to that Nickel mine; sold to Brits after Chinese gave up on it, and we no longer hear about it!
Poor rainfall in the river catchment area upstream can be a real nightmare to a Power generating plant which is 100% hydro. Solution is to either learn to live with the dry months by factoring them into the equation, Or introduce other sources of energy to take up the dry months.
Poor reporting, is it losing $9 million a week, month or a year? Evelyn Hone graduates