ZESCO customers will continue to experience up to 12 hours of loadshedding in a day despite the 2020 rainfall projections of normal to above normal rainfall the company has announced.
According to Zesco, this is because in order to protect the power system from collapsing and ensuring power produced is shared equitably.
Company Director Strategy and Corporate Services, Patrick Mwila announced this at a media briefing this morning.
Mwila says despite the 2020 rainfall projections of normal to above normal rainfall for the Kariba upper catchment area, the dam whose current water levels stood at 12% full compared to 43% full at the same time last year may not record a significant increase in water levels.
He added that load shedding had also been necessitated by the shutdown of one machine at mamba collieries which resulted in loss of power of up to 267 megawatts.
And Zesco Limited Director Generation, Fidelis Mubiana says the 11 billion cubic meters of water allocated to the water utility firm by the Zambezi river authority is insufficient to sustain power demand by the general public.
Engineer Mubiana has also disclosed that the Chinese nationals working on the Kafue Gorge Lower Power project who failed to return to Zambia after their holiday have started coming back and is hopeful that this will expedite works on the project.
SINO Hydro, the company working on the power project has its base in the hard hit WUHAN in China and most of its workers that had gone back to that country for the New Year holiday failed to return after that area recorded the Corona-virus.
The Zambezi River Authority has allocated 11 billion cubic meters of water to the Kariba North Bank for power generation out of which 25% has already been used.