Zimbabweans are subject to 19 hours of power cuts a day, because there is not enough water in the Kariba Dam to power the country’s main hydroelectric plant.
The worst blackouts since 2019 are wreaking havoc, causing entanglements in the capital Harare, where most traffic lights are no longer working, and disrupting mobile phone services as the batteries used to run the base stations don’t have time to recharge. Supermarkets, restaurants, and a few other businesses rely on generators to keep running, but they can’t run them in perpetuity for an extended period of time.
“Kariba generates almost half of our energy needs, so a reduction in its generation capacity is immediately felt throughout our economy and our lives,” Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa wrote in his column on Sunday. weekly in the state media.
The usable water level in Kariba, which is the world’s largest man-made reservoir and is tapped by both Zambia and Zimbabwe, stood at 4.1% on November 28, a record low, according to the Zambezi River Authority, that manages the water. supply for the two southern African nations.
READ | Zim will ask neighbors for help as his energy crisis deepens.
Zimbabwe has used up its Kariba water allotment this year and was drawing 200 megawatts of power from the dam’s hydroelectric plant on Monday, less than a fifth of the installed capacity it should be able to access, according to data on the Zimbabwe website. the Zimbabwe Power Company. .
“Kariba will not shut down completely,” Soda Zhemu, the energy minister, said in an emailed statement. Authorities plan to increase power imports from South Africa and Mozambique, and boost output from their aging coal-fired power plants at Hwange to at least 400MW to help add capacity to the grid, he said.
Zambia will start producing blackouts from December 15, which will last six hours straight and only affect residential areas, Energy Minister Peter Kapala told lawmakers on December 2.
