Zimbabwe households and businesses could lose power for hours until late November as maintenance works start on a 300-megawatt coal-fired power generating unit at Hwange thermal power station.
"(It) is scheduled to undergo Class C Maintenance, a statutory procedure that requires the unit to be taken off the grid after running for a defined period. This work is expected to be completed within 30 days,” Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority said on Wednesday.
The unit started feeding electricity into the national grid in March and it was the first of two units built by Chinas Sinohydro at a cost of $1.4 billion, with 85% of the funding coming from China.
Zimbabweans experienced steady supply of electricity from end of June until September, which coincided with the August general elections.
The country is currently generating less than half of its 1,700 MW demand as the old thermal units at Hwange, commissioned between 1983 and 1987, frequently break down and are performing below capacity.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government says it wants to scale up power generation to 2,500 megawatts by 2025 to cope with increasing demand from the mining sector.
Low water levels due to inadequate rains have seen generation from the country's other major plant, the 1,050MW Kariba South hydro station, being capped.
