Page 8 - AfrElec Week 15 2022

AfrElec COAL AfrElec

Zimbabwe’s new coal-fired

power plant expected online

by November 2022

ZIMBABWE CONSTRUCTION of two coal-fired electricity November when we will do the unit handover.”
generating units in western Zimbabwe is at 84% When both get online, they will add on to
completion, according to a local daily. the 920MW that the existing Hwange Thermal
The China Exim Bank is funding the Hwange Power Station is producing. This will assist in
Thermal Power Station expansion project with a easing the power shortage in the country.
$1.5bn loan and Sinohydro, also of China, is the The Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC)
contractor. said on its website it was generating a total of
The first 300MW unit is forecast to be online 1,205MW on April 12, less than the current
by November with the second one, of the same summer demand of 1,400MW. Electricity con-
capacity, by February 2023, according to a report sumption rises to 1,800MW in winter, which
by The Chronicle, a state-owned daily on Tues- falls between May and August.
day (April 12). Hwange Thermal Power Station was sending
Unit 7 is expected to be commissioned in 325MW to the grid on April 12 while Kariba
November 2022 while Unit 8 is expected to be hydro was dispatching 880MW, according to
ready by February 2023. ZPC. Three coal facilities in Harare, Bulawayo
urbines and generator sets at one unit have and Munyati were all down.
been completed while the boiler is 93% com- The supply gap is met by power imports from
plete, the paper reported, citing the project engi- South Africa and Mozambique but, state-owned
neer Forbes Chanakira. daily The Herald quoted the Zimbabwe Elec-
Engineers expect to do dynamic testing of tricity Supply Authority’s executive chairman,
some of the sections this week paving the way for Sydney Gata on March 17 saying the utility lacks
handover of the plant in November, with overall foreign currency to keep up with installments.
progress now at 84.20%. This forces the utility to maintain a load shed-
“Essentially, turbines and generator sets were ding regime.
completed for Unit 7 and are awaiting com- Chanakira said 810 of the 875 transmission
mencement of commissioning. The boiler is at towers that must be erected to move the addi-
around 93% completion and for the coal stock- tional electricity from Hwange to Bulawayo,
yard, we expect it to come on board in May,” the country’s second-biggest city, have been
Chanakira is quoted as saying. installed.
“The distributed control system that is “A new 400kv line will be installed and run
responsible for controlling the boiler has been parallel to the existing lines on the 368km stretch
switched on. We expect to start hot commis- between Hwange and Bulawayo,” the paper said.
sioning end of July where we burn coal in the The expansion project started in 2018 but was
boiler to heat steam. It will run all the way up to hampered by the COVID-19 outbreak. ™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 15 14•April•2022