Zimbabwe aims for power self-sufficiency in 10 years

15 August 2012 – The permanent secretary of energy and power development in Zimbabwe, Partson Mbiriri, recently said that the country wants to be able to generate enough power to meet domestic and industrial demand by 2022. He also said that most of the critical shortages that cause blackouts across the country will be over by 2015, as other countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region are creating additional capacity that will enable Zimbabwe to import power from them.

He said government was committed to dealing with electricity shortages, which would see the rehabilitation of the Kariba hydroelectric and Hwange thermal power stations expected to start next year.
 
Zimbabwe’s daily electricity requirements average 2,000 MW while Zesa was recently generating only 1,150 MW from three operating power stations: Kariba, Hwange and Munyati while imports from Mozambique’s HCB stood at 150 MW. Earlier this year, HCB threatened to cut off supply to Zimbabwe over unpaid bills that had reached US$76 million.