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ZIMBABWE’S daily power generation has dropped to below 1,200MW from about 1,400MW that was being generated in recent months, statistics from the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) show.

Zimbabwe is currently facing power shortages as national power demand at peak periods is estimated at 2,200MW.

Present generation capacity is far outweighed by demand, resulting in the shortfall being imported from regional power utilities.

According to the statistics as at 0730 hours on Friday, ZPC was generating 1,152 MW only.

Hwange Thermal Power Station sent out 547MW and Kariba Hydro-Power Station 521MW.

The smaller thermal power stations Harare, Munyati and Bulawayo were generating 30MW, 28MW and 26MW respectively.

ZPC said Unit 4 at Hwange which was taken out of service late last year for major overhaul works was contributing to some of the generation constraints being experienced.

“The revised return to service date (of Unit 4) is now March 23, 2013,” it said.

Meanwhile, ZPC managing director Noah Gwariro said ZPC was still working on securing funding for the re-powering of Bulawayo power station.

ZPC applied to the Indian government for funding of the Bulawayo project.

“Funding for this project is not restricted to the Indian government only. We’ll accept other investors that are willing to partner with us in the re-powering exercise,” he said.

The re-powering project for Bulawayo power station will take two years to complete, he said.

ZPC is targeting to produce over 9799.06 GigaWatt-hours of electricity during 2015.

Due to the power deficit the government, through ZPC, has embarked on several projects to increase power output through expanding existing power stations and building new ones.

For example, work is in progress to expand Kariba Power Station by an additional two units which will add a combined 300 megawatts to the national grid on completion in 2018.

Plans are also in place to add two units at Hwange Power Station which would have a combined generation capacity of 600 megawatts.

Zimbabwe is also working with the Zambian government to build the Batoka gorge power station which is expected to generate 1,600MW of electricity to be shared equally by the two countries. — New Ziana