Zambia will commence electricity exports to Zimbabwe next month following a power export agreement signed recently, a senior government official said Tuesday.
Minister of Energy Peter Kapala said state power utility Zesco Limited will start exporting 100 megawatts of electricity to Zimbabwe next month.
“This was the same deal I referred to last week as the one where power from Kafue Gorge Lower (power plant) would be exported to Zimbabwe and Namibia through deals signed in the last few months,” he said in a statement.
He noted that neighboring Zimbabwe was currently facing a shortage of electricity due to depressed degeneration at its power plants.
The power export deal has a three- to five-year tenure and the negotiations were premised on Zimbabwe making pre-payments for the 100 megawatts of 6.3 million U.S. dollars per month.
Meanwhile, Zambia has welcomed plans by South Africa to import power to meet its power needs.
The minister said the move will increase the ready market for Zambia’s surplus power, adding that plans were also underway to interconnect the power grids with Angola.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said recently that his government would consider importing power from Zambia to address the energy crisis the country was facing.
Zambia recently declared a surplus of 1,156.8 megawatts following the commissioning of four out of five generators at its 750-megawatt Kafue Lower Gorge Power Station.
Zambia’s current national electricity generation capacity stands at 3,456.8 megawatts against a peak national demand of about 2,300 megawatts.
