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The Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) says electricity generated in the second quarter of 2017 was 5 percent below target due to inadequate coal supplies for its thermal power stations and continued water conservation measures at Lake Kariba.

ZPC generates electricity from the Hwange Thermal Power Station, the Kariba Hydro Power Station and three small coal fired power stations, Munyati in Kwekwe, Harare and Bulawayo.

“ZPC sent out a total of 1 789.80GWh of energy against a target of 1 902.76GWh,” ZPC managing director Noah Gwariro said in a performance update.

A Gigawatt (GW) equals 1 000 megawatts of electricity and this unit is often used for large power plants or power grids.

“The production target for the period was missed by 5,94 percent due to inadequate coal supplies at the small thermal power stations, water conservation measures at Lake Kariba, as well as numerous boiler tube leaks and outages at Hwange Power Station.”

Meanwhile, Mr Gwariro said notable headway had been registered on power expansion projects, with progress at Kariba South Extension Project, for example, standing at 91 percent. The project remained on course for commissioning in December 2017.

“The Hwange 7 and 8 project is progressing well. The project parties (ZPC and Sinohydro Corporation Limited) are finalising the conditions precedent of the main funding loan of $998m from the Export Import Bank of China.

“ZPC has cleared most of its conditions precedent. Meanwhile, Sinohydro have initially subscribed for their 36 percent shareholding in the project company, Hwange Electricity Supply Company Private Limited,” he said.

“To date, parties are now preparing to inject their respective bulk equity contributions into the project company. Sinohydro and ZPC Technical teams are on the ground in Hwange to finalise the project designs and project site plans.”

He said other projects including the Gwanda solar power project, the Harare and Bulawayo re-powering projects were also taking shape and were at various stages of implementation.—New Ziana.