Power outages: Load shedding split into six-hourly schedule

ZESCO has reduced the load shedding hours to six hours per phase each day from a continuous 12 hours as directed by President Hakainde Hichilema.

This move is meant to give relief to customers while mitigating the impact the load shedding has on small businesses.

Hichilema this week directed ZESCO to consider splitting the 12 hours of load shedding per area into a six-hourly schedule.

The directive came after Hichilema and his entourage toured the Maamba Collieries, and Kariba ZESCO power plants to fully appreciate the extent of electricity generation capacities as a country.

The tour began with the Maamba Power station, where discussions were held with management of the power plant to understand their maintenance schedules, which had greatly contributed to the disruptions of power generation during times when water levels were low in the Kariba Dam.

“In order to mitigate the impact on small businesses, we have directed ZESCO to consider splitting the 12 hours of load shedding per area into a six-hourly schedule, so that they can maintain their operations,” Hichilema said on his facebook page.

He urged management to speed up the maintenance processes so that they could resume normal operations within the shortest possible time.

Further, Hichilema said, his entourage held the view that maintenance schedules should be planned in a manner that did not impede normal power generation on the national grid.

He pointed out that at Kariba Dam, it was obvious that systems and processes had been neglected to the point where there was no proper monitoring, evaluation, and sharing, of critical information by different stakeholders at the right time.

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The Kariba Dam is a shared asset between Zambia and Zimbabwe, run by the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA).

“We shall therefore be engaging our Zimbabwean counterparts to ensure optimisation and effective use of this reservoir. We are told that it is evident that we need to enhance compliance levels in this facility in terms of water management.

“We shall not shy away from taking responsibility where challenges are being faced, as that is key to addressing them. And in addressing these problems, we shall not take politically convenient, populist routes; our decisions shall be based on building sound foundations that will last for generations to come,” Hichilema said.