The Zambezi River Authority has ordered this Sunday the suspension until January of electricity generation at the Kariba Dam, which supplies power to the Zimbabwean utility, until January due to water shortages.
Water storage at the dam is at 4.6 percent of capacity, below the levels needed to run power generation operations at the Kariba South Bank power station, the ZRA, administrator of the the dam on behalf of Zambia and Zimbabwe, in a letter reported by Bloomberg.
The ZRA had already sounded the alarm at the beginning of the month about the marked decrease in storage levels, and did not foresee an improvement until the first quarter of 2023, when the flows begin to receive the accumulated water from the rains typical of these months until the Kariba is filled, the Bulawayo portal reported at the time.
Zimbabwe generates 1,050 megawatts of power from the Kariba Power Station, half of its installed capacity of 2,100 megawatts.
Washington Mareya, acting managing director of Zimbabwe Power, has not commented to Bloomberg beyond assuring that the authorities are working on this issue.
