Zesa allays power shortage fears

Business
ZESA Holdings says the country’s power supply will remain stable despite threats by South Africa’s power utility Eskom and other suppliers to cut off Zimbabwe over mounting debts.

ZESA Holdings says the country’s power supply will remain stable despite threats by South Africa’s power utility Eskom and other suppliers to cut off Zimbabwe over mounting debts.

BY TARISAI MANDIZHA

Zesa’s subsidiary, the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), owes over $780 million to different power suppliers locally and in the region.

ZETDC owes its sister company, Zimbabwe Power Company, $754 million.

In turn, the Zesa subsidiary owes South Africa’s Eskom $18 million, Hydro Cahora Bassa (Mozambique) $9 million and $8 million to the Dema power project.

In e-mailed responses, Zesa Holdings stakeholder relations executive Shepherd Mandizvidza told Standardbusiness that ZETDC was progressively taking steps to settle the arrears in order to ensure continued supplies of imports from Eskom.

“We are currently working to maintain the current status of no load-shedding that our customers have come to appreciate over the last 10 months,” he said.

“Customers are assisting in this regard by paying their bills and settling arrears.”

Mandizvidza said ZETDC had intensified revenue collection in order to pay the debt and that coupled with “continuous constructive engagements with the suppliers, the obtaining business rapport will ensure a stable power supply situation”.

He said the available sources of power met demand for electricity and since December 11 2015, there had been no load-shedding.

Mandizvidza said the revenue that was realised from customers was used to pay for imports and related inputs for generation of electricity, as well as maintenance of the electricity infrastructure for efficient service delivery.

As of October 21 2016, Zesa had 1 443MW for use, inclusive of 350 MW in imports.

“The import is generally dependent on the shortfall that we experience but there are standing agreements with HCB for up to 50MW and Eskom for up to 300MW.

“Local generation varies depending on status of the particular plant but it averages 880MW,” he said.

The country has enjoyed steady supplies of electricity for over a year after the power utility secured power imports to plug a generation gap in the country caused by low local generation capacity.

The power utility is owed $1 billion by consumers and has taken some defaulters to court.

The debt has also reportedly stalled expansion projects at Kariba and Hwange Power Station, which are meant to boost power generation and reduce load-shedding.

Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries vice-president Tracy Mutaviri said the industrial sector had been witnessing load-shedding and this meant an increase to the cost of doing business.

“There is load-shedding and we are not happy as this increases the cost of doing business,” Mutaviri said.

She said the threats by Eskom to cut power supplies was a cause for concern as this would mean load-shedding for the industrial sector would worsen.

“If the load-shedding gets worse, the business sector will incur more cost and it’s not good for business,”Mutaviri said.

“Load-shedding is already the norm but if Eskom cuts its power supply, the situation will even get worse.”