COUNTRYWIDE INTERRUPTION OF POWER SUPPLY DUE TO A FAULT AT KARIBA NORTH BANK POWER STATION (KNBPS)
ZESCO Limited wishes to inform the nation that the countrywide power outage experienced on Friday 8th October 2021, at 17:59 hours was caused by a trip-out of one Generating Unit at KNBPS. The resulting fault affected the remaining units which led to interruption of supply on the Zambian Interconnected Power System affecting the entire country. The loss of generation at KNBPS subsequently led to the tripping of all the other major generating stations including Kafue Gorge Upper, Kafue Gorge Lower, Maamba Collieries, Ndola Energy, Itezhi Tezhi and Victoria Falls due to insufficient power to meet the national demand at the time.
Our engineers worked round the clock and by 18:07 hours a national black start was declared and commenced restoration using supply from ZESA, the national utility company of Zimbabwe and the available machines at KNBPS.
Consequently, Victoria Falls Power Station was the first to be restored and was supplying parts of southern and western provinces by 20:00hrs. Power supply was restored to Lusaka by 20:45 hours and Kitwe by 21:37 hours. Restoration of supply to all Bulk Supply Points was completed and the power system normalized by 23:30 hours.
The suspected faulty generator at Kariba North has been isolated from the Power System and investigations into the cause are still underway.
We wish to thank the public for the cooperation and support during the outage and regret the inconvenience caused.
Issued by: Public Relations Department 11 October 2021
