Some Zimbabweans have said having electricity at night, for a few hours, is the same as not having electricity since there is not much they can use the power.
Most parts of the country get power at night as ZESA, the local power utility, is trying to manage a power crisis.
One Harare resident told BBC that the situation needs to be resolved before it degenerates into a “disaster.” He was quoted as saying:
There is no schedule – yesterday we got it at 10 past 10 but it is passed that time now. Electricity is very essential in our business… From what the government officials are saying we hope this [situation] should turn around soon. If it doesn’t it will be a disaster.
A 43-year-old Wella Chidziva from Mbare said load-shedding was giving citizens a hard time. She told BBC:
We now give each other chances to cook, one over there and another there. It’s the same as not having electricity because when it comes around [midnight] the children are sleeping. Now we are in [the Christmas period] I don’t know what we are going to do.
Some businesses have started working at night while ordinary Zimbabweans are also being forced to change their schedules, to wake up at midnight to iron their clothes, use electric appliances and catch up on the World Cup matches.
Zimbabwe has used about US$2 billion dollars (£1.6bn) for power generation in the last decade but the country still struggles with outages.
The crisis escalated at the end of November when the Zambezi River Authority ordered Zimbabwe’s Kariba South power station to shut down due to dangerously low water levels.
Experts say the country’s coal-powered thermal plants are supposed to supply the baseload power, but the aged generators frequently break down forcing authorities to draw heavily on Kariba.
The country is currently producing about 500 megawatts (MW) of power against a daily peak demand of 2 200 MW.
Energy expert Victor Utedzi who founded the solar farm Centragrid, 30km (19 miles) northwest of the capital, says there is no easy and quick solution to power problems.
He said Zimbabwe needs big projects such as the Batoka Gorge Hydroelectric Power Station to dent the problems the southern African nation is facing.
Poor planning. The population is growing, the energy demands are increasing and yet in 42 years nothing has been done to improve power generation to meet the new demand.
Politicians have been enriching themselves at the expense of national development
why do we only use hydro of zambezi river what about hydro of limpopo,save,mukuvisi river why don't we utilize all our rivers to produce electricity
@just want to help, it's not a simple matter of a name or water body. Hydro Electric schemes require not only perennial water flow but also a sufficiently high head to turn turbines. That disquilifies Limpopo, Save and Mukuvisi because they are seasonal I.e. they dry up in the winter and spring. furthermore none of them have gorges that are sufficiently high to give water enough force to drive turbines.
Having said that hydro-geological surveys (unfortunately for our politicians these are colonial, none being post-colonial) have identified no less than 5 sites on the Zambezi river starting with the Victoria Falls themselves to as farther down as near Cahora Bassa. Pungwe river has potential too, so does Chicamba Dam (just outside Bvumba/Mozambique), and to a lesser extent a couple of rivers in Chimanimani and Chipinge bordering Mozambique.
p.s. Tokwe-Mukosi, Kyle, Manjirenji, Bangala are primarily irrigation and can be discarded for those reasons. Irrigation dams, unless the off take points are below turbines are also unsuitable as the water used for power generation is list downstream. Most of these have seasonal catchment areas prone to drying out of used for power generation
Wind generation would be better than solar panels which are inefficient.
There is always wind 24/7
Which part of Zimbabwe experiences strong winds that can run the turbines of wind generators?