Government secures emergency electricity

GOVERNMENT has signed a deal to source additional 140 megawatts (MW) of emergency electricity from Aggreko Independent Power producer of Mozambique.

 
Aggreko will start supplying power to Zambia this month to help mitigate load shedding.
The deal to source power from Aggreko gas-fired plant is in addition to the 300MW which Zesco Limited is getting from the state-owned Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) and the Southern Africa Power Pool day ahead-market during off-peak hours.
On Monday, Zesco announced there would be an increase in hours of load shedding following reduction of daily electricity production capacity at Kariba North Bank Power station from 500MW to 305 MW due to reduced water allocation by Zambezi River Authority (ZRA), which manages the Kariba Dam.

Zesco senior manager-transmission south Julius Kampamba said in an interview that the power utility is making progress to mitigate the power deficit by undertaking medium to long-term projects.
“The 120MW Itezhi-Tezhi hydropower project is 87 percent complete and the first unit of 60 MW is scheduled for commissioning by December 2015 and the last 60MW unit is scheduled for January 2016.
Also the first 150MW unit at Maamba Coal power plant will be commissioned by January 2016 while the other 150MW unit will be commissioned by March 2016, in addition, Government has come on board and will procure emergency power [140MW] from an Independent power producer [Aggreko] in Mozambique from September 2015 to December 2016,” said Mr Kampamba.

And Zesco senior manager business development Chitembo Simwanza said the power utility has initiated a project to install distributed solar plants amounting to 300MW and commissioning is scheduled to start in September 2016.
“This month, Zesco will start running tenders to procure electricity from independent power producers who will set up solar power plants,” he said.

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