ZESCO creates transmission corridor for northern region to manage power cuts

TO reduce overload on the power grid caused by increased mining activities in the northern region, ZESCO Limited has commissioned a second 330 kilovolts Kabwe – Pensulo line in Serenje Central Province to sustain transmission capacity and prevent power cuts.

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The transmission line connecting the Kabwe Step Down Substation to Pensulo Substation will father a new power transmission corridor for Muchinga, Luapula, Northern, Eastern, and Central provinces.

Site manager Masoka Daka says the project worth US$134 million is part of the high voltage alternating current transmission line under the Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya interconnecter power system which will link the Eastern African Power Pool (EAPP) with the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) that is yet to be completed in two years.

“So this is phase one of ZTK. 300 kilometer line from Kabwe to Pensulo. Then the other part of phase one of ZTK is a line from Mpika to Kasama to Nakonde that is 211 kilometer of the line,” Daka said

“In short we are connecting Eastern Africa power pool. We want to access energy from East African power pool when we have a dry spell. And when it’s wet we have rains we will be able to export power to East Africa Power Pool.”

He said the demand on electricity is high owing to new entrants in the mining sector leading to high economic activities in Luapula, Northern, Muchinga, Central and Eastern province.

Daka explained that the electrification rate in Zambia stands at 22 percent and government intends to reach a target of 51% electrification in line with vision 2030.

“Recently we have seen increased mining activities in central province. A lot of smelters have been set up which are consuming approximately over 130 mega watts just around Pensulo. We have also seen agriculture activities in the five provinces,” he said.

“So we need more power to be transferred from our power stations to our customers.
Those are the main reason why this second line is being brought in. So when we complete this ZTK we are going to have two lines from Nakonde all the way up to Kabwe Step down. Kabwe step down is like a nod… you can go to Lusaka; you can go to the Copperbelt.”

Daka indicated that the connection of the distribution network for transmission capacity will be operational by July 31 and power cuts will be alleviated.

“When we have a fault or we want to carry out maintenance on this, we have to take out five provinces. We would find a planned outage to carry out maintenance for eight hours but we are being forced to do it in less than two hours so we don’t carry out effective maintenance on this line. So we have had a lot of snags,”he said.

“A separate department called ZTK has been set up to expedite these works. So part of our department has been split and then they set this one a special one just to deal with ZTK phase two.”

He said the 300kv will not reduce on load shedding as the project which is earmarked for construction in two years for cross-border connections will ease the pressure of power supply in the long term.

“Reduced load shedding will only happen when we link to Nakonde. That is why we are saying they should expedite that link between Kasama to Nakonde. That will only happen once we start importing power from Tanzania,”Daka said.

“It is a very critical link the one between kasama and Nakonde that is why they are expediting this process so that we can link that one quickly then we can tap 300 megawatts. We have a shortage of 750 megawatts. If you bring in the other one, we will be able to bring in about 500 megawatts. So we will see a lot of reduction in terms of load shedding.”

He said ZESCO will consider putting up solar plants in order to reduce hours of load shedding.

“So this ZTK phase two is being funded by the World Bank. So the funds are already available it is just finalizing engaging the contractor to go on the ground. The one which is funded by Zesco is phase one which by 31st July will be completed. Then the world bank is funding phase two. So financing has been secured,” Daka explained.

He said the mines in the province that are processing manganese are consuming 130 mega watts and have requested for additional supply.

“We have received a number of applications for addition of new connection from the mining customers around here. There are a number of fancies around here processing Manganese. Initially we only had a few processing plants which were consuming roughly around 60 megawatts as at now they are consuming around 130 megawatts of power,” said Daka.

“So from the projection of the applications they need an additional 120 megawatts which will bring it to a total 250 megawatts. Last year we commissioned a new transformer 120 megawatts which is also not adequate to supply the current minies rods. So we are currently seeing an increasing number of mining rods which requires addition transformation and additional capacity on the line.”

Meanwhile ZESCO spokesperson Matongo Maumbi says the utility hasin the past two months lost more than K8 million in repair costs due to vandalism.

He says ZESCO is pushing for stiffer laws so that vandals are removed from circulation.

“It seems scrap metal dealers are the conduit or the bigger fish in terms of vandalism. So we do door to door searches especially with scrap metal dealers that are discovered to have no licenses those are the biggest culprits,”said Maumbi.

“We find our material with scrap metal dealers so that is quite also contributing we have reached an extent where we are trying to push for the law to be stiffened for vandals and against vandalism so that it also becomes an unbailable offense. People need to feel the pinch of getting involved in such matters when we get them out of society. We’ve had a number of arrests matters are in court and we will see how the court processes will get to go.”

By Mwaka Ndawa

Kalemba June 17, 2024.