Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Power generation at main power stations sitting at a deficit of 872 Megawatts

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Kariba Dam
Kariba Dam
Power generation at main power stations namely Kariba, Kafue George and Ithezi thezi has significantly reduced with the current power deficit sitting at 872 Megawatts.

Zesco Public Relations Manager Hazel Zulu says this has led to prolonged load shedding resulting in customers experiencing longer load shedding periods of more than 15 hours per day.

Mrs Zulu said Zesco has continued to control and monitor the balance between the demand and supply of electricity and will adjust accordingly as conditions dictate.

She said is against this background that most areas countrywide are now experiencing longer hours of load shedding.

Mrs Zulu has however appealed to customers to employ energy efficient and conservation initiatives such as switching off lights if not needed and switching off electrical appliances when not in use as well as considering use of alternative sources of energy where possible to help equitably share the available electricity.

In a statement, Mrs Zulu has regretted the inconvenience this has caused to customers.

27 COMMENTS

  1. For how long are we going to listen to this cliché? It is a now a song which has been seeing for a long time. We are used to this load shedding and just keep quiet if you have nothing to say. Time will come when water levels will rise. The best ,as at now, is just to keep quiet.

    • This is about survival. Questions will be asked later. Let’s survive to the next rainy season. After that we can begin to ask questions about Zesco.

    • The only mames we hear now in top positions in most of the institutions are Zulu,Mwale,Nkhuwa,Ngulube,Mwanza,Miti,Tembo,Lungu,Phiri etc…..no wonder there’s incompetence

  2. It’s all because of lack of foresight from you chaps at ZESCO! You claim to have very educated electrical engineers but they failed to just plot a simple line graph to illustrate the rate of loss of water in the dam, let alone to extrapolate the graph to Zero Water Month! If we were the ones running ZESCO, we would have acted way ahead to advise GRZ to borrow to import to power to keep our industries afloat! What ZESCO has done is like a maid in the house who says mealie meal or Salt is finished at 21:00 hours when shops are closed! No foresight! My Bankers are telling me we now have more US Dollars leaving our economy – not a good sign. The Kwacha is already getting a good beating! Expect it to race towards 15 by December 2019!

  3. Zesco Management can’t innovate and think outside the box. The quicker it’s unbundled the better. There will be no new entrants in the electricity sector as long as Zesco maintains monopoly. Let them just generate power, distribution should go to other players. They’re a nuisance that’s a burden on the Treasury

    • You still want useless Zesco to continue solely depending on rains with power generation? Leave them with power distribution after serious firms have generated power for these dunderheads.

  4. 1. The Governor of the BOZ says Zambia has $1.4 billion of foreign reserves to cover 1.5months imports. Use $32million from them to import as a matter of emergency power from RSA. 2. Ensure that the 150MW thermal plant machine is repaired by making sure that if it is money you owe that is holding the repairs it is paid promptly. 3. Schedule your load shedding to ensure that there is enough time for people with inverters to have their batteries recharged . You can’t have load shedding in one area from 0500 hours to 2400 hours every day especially in high cost areas where people have spent money on inverters. Batteries can’t recharge.

  5. Let him not tell us about the deficit
    But what measures they are taking
    To overcome this deficit. We have
    This problem for so many years but
    We still keep on blaming the climate
    Change.Lets use our brains to diversify to solar power.

  6. Iwe mrs Zulu, but what time are we going to practise yamene iyo “switch and save “when we are loadshedded for more than 19 hours a day? ine the moment power comes back , i wake up the kids to watch T.V, i switch on the Stove and cook vimbombo and beans ,offals and game meat kaili we cook in advance. at the same time i switch on the geyser to warm some water, my maid who now reports at 20 hours wakes up to iron while my husband catches up with the sports news in the bedroom. maenawhile ninshi garden boy atilila panja while the pumping some water in the tank.. all these activities happen at 02 hours when power is restored

  7. It is NOT ZESCO, this is happening bcoz ZESCO has been abused and well meaning people thrown out, and those that have remained have been emasculated!! Engineers can advise but cadres and their politicians have done their best to ruin this otherwise promising company!! VISIONLESS POLITICIANS HAVE LED US INTO THIS DARKNESS, IT IS A GOOD MOTIVATION TO NEVER KEEP THIS CROP OF INCOMPETENT CLOWNS IN POWER AFTER 2021!!

  8. ZESCO must have the laziest engineers in the world. These guys despite spending 5 years at UNZA cant even come up with a simple solution to power deficits. All the know is distributing power and not innovating new ways of power generation.

  9. So now we know Hazel is not Mwale but Zulu or possibly Ms Mwale. It is not public relations to tell sighted people it is night time when they can see it is. Pity Zambia does no value Zambians with expertise in any area. The Senior Engineer RTD should have been contracted to assist long ago. What about all the dollars stollen already? Why can’t they be used to deal with the current situation? Very soon many will no longer be able to buy any groceries at Shoprite. The Kwacha is catching up with the Rand so prices will move from just putting a K where the R is to doubling that price. At closing today, the K is at 13.95/$; the R is at 14.94/$. This is bad news for Zambia even if SA is downgraded to Junk next Friday.

  10. Climate change has come to stay. The critical issue at hand is not just to update us on the prevailing situation but inform us what are Zesco’s plans to bring the load shedding to very minimum levels. Zesco should call an energy indaba were people will give suggestions on how to bring this load shedding to an end. Hydro generated power should just be part of the energy mix but not the only source of power.

    • At least Hazel is more refreshing than that ignorant pretender Henry Kapata.
      Too bad your job is to defend management dunderheads, Hazel. Can’t we find people in Zambia that can run Zesco better than those clowns and party cadres?

  11. Comment: am sure this should be an enough lesson of looking for another angles as in for now, the ZESCO is just relying and waiting for the next approaching raining season and what if it won’t rain sufficiently to at the view of increasing the water levels?
    Is it only on my view that am not getting anything like a solution to the matter or there is, now I have not heard about it!?

  12. We got loans to address this power deficit in Millions of Dollars.
    THE PF has misappropriated and stole the money borrowed for Power, Railways infrastructure.
    Then when they loose in 2021, they will leave the Zambians to pay for money they have stolen.
    DOUBLE THEFT FROM ZAMBIANS BY PF IS CRIMINAL.

  13. Let’s remember the mmd days and compare? Were we better off? Did we make a mistake voting pf? I certainly think so 100%. I saw through the lies of more money in your pockets but unfortunately a lot of people were shouting pabwato on top of there voice and now this is where we are. We all have to suffer together.

  14. There are Only 2 Solvent Power Utilities in Sub Sahara and some because of confirmation bias and non competitive progressive tariffs to .10 Cents per kwh will fail to turn around in those same technologies whose costs have climatized below .5 cents per kwh There is need to see sustainability affordability and fit in those generation methods long-term should be understood also
    that very few utilities and sovereigns are entering into power purchase agreements at more than $0.10/kWh today and this age and Zesco should be an exception also and not lock itself and finances in those PPAs and tariffs for the future

    It was interesting listening to the ECZ meeting on Tariffs and Investments in the…

  15. energy sector and from both sides it was clearly “offside” and not current thinking in tariffs and investments in the energy sector Though some comments made some sense and had basis

  16. …..At least Hazel is more refreshing than that ignorant pretender Henry Kapata.
    Too bad your job is to defend management dunderheads, Hazel. Can’t we find people in Zambia that can run Zesco better than those clowns and party cadres?

  17. appealed to customers to employ energy efficient and conservation initiatives such as switching off lights if not needed and switching off electrical appliances when not in use as well as considering use of alternative sources of energy where possible to help equitably share the available electricity.
    Yet them don’t practice what they preach, add more households to a limping national grid, why can’t zesco start put up solar paneled roof for it new clients to save the limping hydro plants, when is them adapting to climate change?

  18. Bring back the colonialist you chased away to come and manage zesco efficiently.The same thing happened with Eskom SA.The technical expertise were replaced with incompetent black engineers who mismanaged the utility and the result is load shedding and government bail out.

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