Maravi

Zambia resumes power imports from Congo

Zambia resumes power imports from Congo
By Joan Chirwa and Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Wednesday May 14, 2008 [04:00]

ZAMBIA has resumed imports of around 120 mega watts (MW) of power from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the reconnection of interconnector between the two countries. And Zesco Limited generation and transmission director Christopher Nthala has said the Zambia-Zimbabwe power interconnector would only be switched on when it was reasonably safe to do so.

Meanwhile, International Finance Corporation (IFC) country manager Saleem Karimjee has said that construction of the Kafue Gorge Lower hydropower station will be economically unviable at the current electricity tariffs in the country.
The resumption of power imports from the DRC is expected to ease Zambia’s load shedding pattern in the country.

For a couple of weeks, electricity consumers experienced increased load shedding as the country could not import power from either the DRC or Zimbabwe.

“The DRC interconnector has been on since last Friday and we are able to import at least around 120 MW of power from that country at a time when they have available power on their system,” said Nthala in an interview. “The lack of capacity for power generation is a regional problem but countries can still share power at a time when demand is not too high.”

And Nthala said a joint technical committee tasked to assess the Zambia-Zimbabwe interconnector was last Friday expected to give a report on the matter.

The Zambia-Zimbabwe interconnector was suspended early this year following system disturbances on the grid that resulted in countrywide power blackouts in January.

“The Zambia-Zimbabwe interconnector will remain open until we find solutions but the Zimbabwe-South Africa interconnector is on,” Nthala said. “We will bring back the Zambia-Zimbabwe interconnector as soon as it is reasonably safe to do so. Zambia’s interconnectors are very important to support the system but at the same time, they can bring problems. The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) is severely constrained in generation capacity and this is why we have power problems everywhere.”
Nthala said power imports were costing Zesco Limited more than twice the cost of electricity in Zambia.

“We import power at around 12 US cents per kilowatt per hour and we sale that power much cheaper than that,” said Nthala.

And the government and IFC announced at a press briefing yesterday the commencement of the feasibility study for the Kafue Gorge Lower hydropower station by International Finance Corporation (IFC) which is expected to gobble about US $6 million.
Karimjee explained that it was inevitable that electricity tariffs would have to be increased to meet the demands of putting up a hydropower station the size of Kafue Lower Gorge.

“At current rate of about 3.5 US cents power kilowatt per hour, the electricity tariff in the country is too low to make the construction of Kafue Gorge economically viable to pay for new generation capacity,” said Karimjee.

“We believe the Energy Regulations Board is working out plan to ensure the price is increased of course not dramatically…but consumers have to pay for this increase.”
Energy minister Kenneth Konga said the government would not develop Kafue Gorge Lower hydropower station to only benefit the mining sector but all sectors of the economy.

Earlier, delegation leader Javier Calvo defended the government’s decision to engage IFC to do the feasibility study for the hydropower plant saying it would have been too risky for the government to just proceed on one proposal.

Labels: DRC, ENERGY

posted by MrK @ 4:15 AM