The Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) late on Monday said the new 300 megawatts (MW) generating unit at Hwange Thermal Power Station started feeding electricity into the national grid.
Zimbabwe is expanding the 920MW Hwange power station by adding two 300MW units (7 & 8) at a cost of US$1.4 billion, with 85% of the funding coming from China, reported Reuters.
Unit 7, the first of the two units built by China’s Sinohydro, was successfully synchronised into the national grid on Monday evening. A short statement released by ZPC yesterday reads:
The Hwange Expansion Project’s Unit 7 was successfully synchronised today at 1826hrs.
Power will be progressively fed into the grid until it reaches 300MW.
The ZPC has said it expects the second 300MW thermal unit (unit 8) to start generating power in October.
On Tuesday, 21 March, ZPC was generating a paltry 522MW from two out of five power stations.
Hwange and Kariba were generating 323MW and 199MW respectively, while Munyati, Bulawayo, and Harare were producing zero.
Zimbabwe requires 1 700MW in Summer to end load shedding.
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