Power Utility Company Zesco has announced there will be increased load shedding countrywide from 19th October 2019 for a period of 12 days due to the limitation of power generation.
This follows the taking out of service of one generating unit at Maamba Collieries Limited Power Station which developed a fault on 15th October 2019.
During the period of the shutdown, generation at Maamba Collieries limited will be scaled down to 50 percent of the dispatchable capacity, according to the Public Relations Department.
The Company said that to mitigate the shortfall during the shutdown period, additional load management of up to three hours will be implemented in order to prevent over generation beyond the recommended levels at Kafue Gorge and Kariba North Bank Power Stations.
Approaching rock bottom.
You are in trouble in Zambia………………………….It is stated happy in heaven (those living in foreign countries) but shame to earth (Zambia) because the devil is casted upon you……………Mwachuleni Mukwai!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Opportunity Cost.
Got some euro bond and Chinese loans invested in the non performing Zambia railways and repair of hydro plants instead of building more coal plants like the maamba one, now due to putting to much pressure on it ,the lone coal plant can’t take anymore.
It looks like ZESCO’s job is no longer to generate electricity but to loadshed
I HAVE ALWAYS WONDERED WHY ZESCO DOES NOT SUPPLY POWER TO THE MINES DIRECTLY AND NOT THROUGH “MIDDLEMAN” CEC WHO REAP PROFITS FOR THE BENEFIT OF A HANDFUL GROUP OF SHAREHOLDERS?
DO YOU KNOW THAT THE PRESENT ARRANGEMENT IS UNCOSCIONABLE IN THAT ZESCO GENERATES POWER ONLY FOR CEC TO DISTRIBUTE TO THE BIGGEST CONSUMERS (MINES).
THE VERY TINY NUMBER OF SHAREHOLDERS WHO BENEFIT FROM THIS INSANE ARRANGEMENT ARE NOW BILLIONAIRES AND SUPPORT THE OPPOSITION IN ZAMBIA!!
Let’s just shut down this country
Total shutdown in the waiting.You better be categorical on the total number of hours to be loadshedded instead of using the jargon that they will be additional load management of up to three hours.Places like Mandevu are already loadshedded up to 12 hours a day.Does it mean it will now be 15 hours a day?
Will soon be grounding to a halt….please heavenly Father, grant us your mercies and give us rains….
@4 Shaa,It NOT rain that will save us BUT A NEW LEADERSHIP THAT IS FOCUSSED ON RUNNING AND PRUDENTLY MANAGING STATE AFFAIRS FOR THE GOOD OF US ALL!! The Maamba power plant they are mentioning generates POWER from COAL not water!!
Shaa…It’s not rains. It’s POOR LEADERSHIP in Zambia. We have a visionless drunkard president who doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s the duty of the government to solve the country’s problems. They should’ve come up with alternatives by now. But Lungu is incompetent, corrupt and mediocre. The solution is change of leadership in 2021. Don’t be naive and let yourself be fooooooled by corrupt PF. It’s not about rain.
These are the sort of prayers God wont answer because He gave us capacity to deal with such problems. Why has the government not thought of investing in renewable energy all this time. Stop disturbing God, He has a lot more serious issues to deal with.
The PF god with a small “g” has already answered their prayers by increasing the number of hours of darkness…kikikiki
How I wish this day was dedicated to a public discussion of Pressing National problems and finding options to resolve those problems!
Zesco had been used to buy PF election fitenge and now it is totally broke. Not all countries have waterfalls but have electricity all the time
Just say 12 weeks because we know that 12 days will in no time turn into weeks.PF you have lamentably failed this country.No solution seems to be in place to solve this crisis.Very soon we will start having power for only 2 hours.
Just take to 12 years!
We have a major fu#k up in the country management. We shouldnt be having these load shedding because we have a lot of sunshine to develop solar farms which can contribute to our national grid. Another company approached zed to start a solar farm but Ba minister wanted to ukuswamo so the refused to bribe and took the business to Rwanda!
Shuwa a whole government doesn’t have 20 million dollars per month to import power from wherever..SA or the power ship. I guarantee you that if mmd were in power, they would have found this money and imported the power so that they cushion the impact on the country. This whole power issue has been mismanaged by pf from day 1 because how do you explain that the load shedding time during mmd in 2011 was 2 hours 3 times per week only and a few areas. This was when the economy was booming and all mines working at their peak. Once pf came into power within 1 year it was 8 hours everyday and country wide. Are you telling me just in 1 year of pf there was such an economic boom and so many new houses built that suddenly there was a shortage of power? I think this coincided with the power…
When professionals are replaced with bootleaking cadres………
15 hours of loadshedding will be too much, govt won’t have revenue from taxes if there won’t be productivity in the country,
Just increase the tariffs to give people a choice of using expensive power or not,
We know that tariffs in South Africa are at 12cents, Which translates to k1.60,
Just import power.
In some places, increasing means nothing now.
Live in the malls-plenty power,water and other modern amenities.
Yaku imwe!!! You mean there is space for increasing loadshedding!? Isn’t this just an excuse to actually shut down ZESCO and have its managers get paid for nothing? Neo na dabwa ka!?
Today’s National Day of Prayer should be regarded as National Mourning for ZESCO!
Sometimes all what is needed for people to see and understand underlying the challenges and problems I the short-term before you put your Kafue lower and other sights is simply a daily or weekly systems capacity and adequacy reports setting out those dispatch able capacities, the EAFs,the Planned and unplanned systems outages and the “Factors”. It crucially important as you approach the rain seasons. It’s not a secret. We have observed the Energy availability factor in the recent past under performed chiefly due to hydro orientated generations power plants but a dash board report daily made available to clients will help clients understand and support
I have received a text sms messages…
What exactly are you trying to say?
I think his brain is loadshedding
I have received a text sms messages now advicing on increased load shedding hrs from 3 hrs to 12 hrs ,that may be good but only to a limited sense what is needed is to bring the customers to the systems in reports and dash boards nearer to NCC . It does not mean physical visitation to generation sites and transmissions sites, it can be done more like explained above
We don’t need to understand what is happening, we want to know the solutions!
Banking on the 300 Mw imports from our utility in Unplanned outages now at 10500 MW also will be unsustainable in capacity and costs (Its at premium per Mw)
The option is to work with trans-formative ideas with customers that will yield before rains,commercial operation of those new build and increased well balanced diversified mix in RE and variable
Oooh …these Paramount Failures(PF) who have abused ZESCO to its near moribund!! They have now found a lame excuse against Maamba,
barely 3 weeks ago they said routine maintenance at Maamba bla bla…now they are here with story.The Maamba plant is only 3 years in operation,it is alreadu breaking down,PLEASE TELL US HOW MUCH EACH POWER STATION IS CONTRIBUTING TO THE NATIONAL GRID SO WE CAN SEE THROUGH YOUR LIES!!
Thats what happens when people tell you that they have no vision for the nation whatsover. Lets get the beating we all dununad in reverse gear. Yes we are in reverse gear for real. In this era a nation fails to generate enough electricity for its citizens is a great shame. What about those exports to Zaire and Other countries while we are starving to death. Think – atleast have a vision for the nation. Am sure HH has a vision unlike those without.
Disaster!!!!
Why can’t this slow thinking government give zero duty on all power generating products ‘eg’ gensets ,sollar panels and the rest.
What is needed is a Long-term IRP for the Zambian energy sector In-fact it should have come or been done earlier and first than the Cost of Service study Without any IRP (revised) there will still be little investments in the various energy portfolios (mix)
Its also non partisan issue and non is more intellectual than those before as the potential sites for solar hydro storage and others are well non and could be further marketed in a proper IRP(revised focus) and see how climate resilient or generation mix could be made
its a bipartisan and national issue
@4.1Zambiasours…I know way too well about the power industry in Zambia and beyond…..for the meantime the best we can do is pray to our God Almighty to grant us enough rains to sort out our power issues….as we wait to seek good foresighted leaders…….this power thing has hit SADC region with a thud….its not something to solve in a year, not even large reliable solar power can be attained in a years timeframe…. We need to think hard and plan real seriously if we have to get through this….for now let’s ask Gods intervention for the rains coz just imagine for once if we don’t get rains, what will become of Zambia, it surely will ground to a halt… Coz even when you think of importing, from where coz the only reliable is source SA and they have power blues of their own…they…
….. are to shed 2000MW just in Johannesburg city, which is a total of our entire nation….and even if they sacrifice, do we have the money to import, to revive which economy…. Ukwipikila fye beans nokutamba cartoon……we no production country…we a consuming nation….its pointless to ask for services which we can’t pay for!
He, silimo se kiku inyelela mwa lififi!
#1.4 ZAMBIA FIRST, please let us not share ignorance. Let us use our mental faculties to the maximum to solve the deep rooted challenges that have befallen our country rather than waste your time worrying about what you will later learn are non-issues.
Just as an example, do you think that it is wrong for bars to sell Mosi to you when the producers Zambian Breweries could sell their beer directly to you in your house?
Or is it wrong for Maamba power generators to sell their power to Zesco to resell to you into your house?
If we are to move this country forward let us think as people not as party cadres who kill themselves senselessly because they either support Lungu or HH.
Where does the power for loadsheding go when the mines have downsized, reduced the production and laid people off. You give jobs to uneducated caders to appease them and see now where we are as a country. You have a teacher for a minister of mines surely how can the mines perform? The roads you been boasting about are wearing out as we speak. Economic activity has gone down. Ever since PF took over you have been using money on useless by-elections, useless trips. The downfall of a country is when the people stop standing together, when the people become ignorant about issues that really matter. The systems that are supposed to uphold peace and justice as well as everything progressive have become compromised and are in the forefront perpetrating the very things they are created to stand…
In summary…Zambians lack business acumen
With such abundant resources, this country should be the Singapore of Africa!
ZESCO has the best performing MD and CEO since in memorial, non of the previous MDS’S WERE HIT WITH DROUGHT BUT THE md HAS MANAGED TO MITIGATE BY LOADSHADING
A competent thinking regime would have embarked on instituting energy provision alternatives years ago. For those merely excusing this useless govt. on grounds of ‘no rain’, a simple question to you, is; ‘What if it doesn’t rain at all for the next couple of years? (God forbid)
Zambia at the moment is a true F@cked up country because this is not normal.
Comment: Fifty-five years of independence, still no additional alternative energy generation policy.
ZESCO you need to sit down analyze these Loadshedding issues, think about the consequences they may have in the future.