Load-shedding will only occur because of power exports
By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) says it has engaged the two power utilities ( ZESCO and ZESA) of low levels of water reserves at the Kariba Dam especially that Zambia may experience below normal seasonal rainfall.
Zambia generates 1,080 megawatts of power from Kariba Dam.
However Zambia has installed capacity of over 3,500 megawatts and its national use at peak demand is about 1,800-2200 megawatts.
The installed generation capacity comprises of 83 percent of hydro, 9 percent of coal, 5 percent of heavy fuel oil and 3 percent solar PV.
The mining sector remains the largest consumer of power at 51% of total generated electricity, followed by the domestic sector at 33%.
Zambia is exporting power to Bostwana, DRC, Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa.
Zambia is also importing power from Mozambique.
Below are the power plants and their generation capacity
Kafue Gorge-990
Kafue Gorge lower-750
Victoria Falls- 108
Kariba Northbank-720
Kariba Northbank Extension-360
Itezhi-itezhi-120
Small Hydro
1. Lunzua-15
2. Lusiwasi -86
3. Chishimba-15
4. Musonda- 10
5. Shiwangandu-1
This is before we add independent power producers such as (CEC), North-Western Energy Corporation (NWEC), Lunsemfwa Hydro Power Company (LHPC), and Maamba Collieries Limited.
Numbskull bleachman,
You of all people should know how electricity is traded and contracts thereof. When u were lungu’s tail or buttocks under PF were you not exporting?
This nincompoop does not know that hydro electric power depends on the water head to drive turbines. You may have one billion megawatts capacity but without enough charge water you produce nothing!!!! The problem with Zambia is everyone wants to talk about everything!!! You are NOT an electrical engineer and know nothing about power generation…you are just a grade twelve failure catholic priest and you talk about exporting power. Do you know that whilst exporting ACTIVE POWER we are buying INACTIVE POWER to keep our power factor at 0.8? We need the VARs idiot!!! Shut the fuck up!!!!
The problem of people who have never run a business before but start talking about issues they barely understand. So according to Mr. Mwamba, we should cancel export contracts whenever we experience power shortages no matter how minimal the severity maybe forgetting that there are costs to abruptly cancellation of contracts? Apart from that, our export market customers need to have confidence that we are reliable, otherwise, it will be pointless to create a surplus electricity surplus if we won’t have customers should they deem us being unreliable. Yes it may be painful if decide to continue supplying the export market customers while we are loadsheddiing locals but long term benefits outweigh short term pain.