The two-hour blackout that hit most parts of the country on Wednesday night resulted from a systems disturbance at Kariba Hydro Power Station during which all five units that supply the country with power were lost.
The power outage affected several areas outside Harare such as Gweru, Chinhoyi, Masvingo, Beitbridge and others.
Zesa Holdings spokesperson Fullard Gwasira yesterday said the disturbances also affected Hwange Power Station. This led to an unstable grid, resulting in the disconnection of inter-connectors at Insukamini (South Africa) and Songo (Mozambique).
“The Mozambique system was unstable and this meant we (Zimbabwe) were on our own now so for some moments we lost generation,” he said. “But by 11pm, we had restored all the units at Kariba and the link between Zimbabwe and Mozambique.”
He said following the disconnection, Kariba could not contain the load.
“Kariba provides about 600 megawatts of electricity so when the units were lost, it was operating under frequency, which means there was now a heavier load than the power available. We have now restored all the interconnectors, but we are only importing power on emergencies,” he said.
He said while Kariba was quickly restored, Hwange took some time because they had to heat the diesel first since it is a thermal power station and there was need to have a synchronisation.
