Zimbabwe power generation set to add 1,365MW by December

ZESA puts private construction in progress at 635MW, with a further 730MW closing its financing. The utility is targeting an end to imports and load shedding by the close of next year, on a system where dependable capacity has run below peak demand.

Private companies are building 635MW of new generating capacity in Zimbabwe, with a further 730MW concluding its financing. Engineer Cletus Nyachowe, ZESA Holdings’ acting chief executive, gave those figures to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee at Hwange in May, putting 1,365MW on the system by December.

Most of it is coal-fired and most of it is at Hwange. Zhongjin Heli has commissioned the first 100MW phase of a captive plant and is 45% through a second phase of 135MW targeted for September. Sunny Jinlong’s 90MW thermal plant near Norton stands at 35% overall, with the initial 60MW of works at 70%.

Zimbabwe has 2,962MW of installed capacity. Large hydro accounts for 1,050MW and coal for 1,680MW, leaving small hydro, bagasse and solar independent producers with 232MW between them. Dependable capacity has run between 1,200MW and 1,600MW against peak demand of about 2,000MW, with imports covering the difference, and Nyachowe has set a target of ending both imports and load shedding by December 2027.

Kariba South produces around 45% of annual generation. ZESA told a parliamentary oversight visit in June that the station remains among the country’s most strategic assets while the utility diversifies into new solar and thermal capacity, and the committee noted 188 consecutive days without nationwide load shedding.

Supply interruptions can still come from the network rather than from generation. On the evening of 6 July a fault on the Warren-Alaska 330kV line severed Zimbabwe’s interconnections with neighbouring utilities, and the voltage instability and under-frequency that followed tripped local generation. Supply was restored over about four hours drawing on Eskom, Kariba, Cahora Bassa and three Hwange units.

Livingstone hosts the Zimbabwe-Zambia Energy Projects Summit in November, on the river both countries draw from. Private capital is building generation on either side of it, and the networks that move the power will be part of the same conversation.