Traffic across Harare was worse this morning thanks to a city-wide power outage, and it sounds like must of the rest of the country would have also been affected.

The statement issued this morning by the Chairman of the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) helps to explain:

Dear Stakeholder/Customer

It is with regret that I advise of the sudden “shut down”" of both our major sources of generation at 0625 hours this morning (Wednesday 9th November 2011).

This was caused by a major system disturbance (system instability) on the transmission network. Early indications are that this disturbance originated from the transmission line from Mozambique. It would appear that this was a severe shock as it also impacted on the Kariba North Bank station (Zambia)

When the stations are subjected to these exogenous shocks the first step is to look for collateral damage before sequentially bringing units back on line.

It its hoped that units at Kariba can be brought back over the next 24 hours. Hwange takes a  few days and this period may have  be extended due scarcity of diesel in the country.

Thank you

R. Maasdorp
Chairman ZPC

Note: Update from ZPC Chairman 2pm 9 Nov 2011 – Kariba has all units back on the grid – record time, well done to the team there. Hwange now ready to bring the first unit back.

This entry was posted on November 9th, 2011 at 12:38 pm by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.