The power blackouts announced by South Africa’s Eskom Holdings will exacerbate power shortages in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
Eskom’s cuts will affect imports that Zimbabwe receives from Africa’s largest power utility, Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution said on Twitter Wednesday. The southern African nation has a non-binding agreement to import up to 400 MW from Eskom, while an additional 100 MW is imported from Mozambique.
The availability of power from utilities with which Zimbabwe has power-purchase agreements has an impact on the performance of the national grid, especially at a time when the country is experiencing a deficit, Zesa Holdings spokesperson Fullard Gwasira said by text message. “The corresponding decline in imports will be reflected in increased load shedding,” he said, using the local term for rolling blackouts.
Blackouts in Zimbabwe already last as much as 18 hours a day and the country spends $23-million monthly on electricity imports, according to the energy regulator.