Zimbabwe’s power group owes $18 million to Eskom

• 7 years ago (2016-11-24)
• David Flin

Africa 303 Asia 850 Australasia 51 Biomass 8 Climate change 20 Coal 275 Cogeneration 1 Concentrating solar 5 Cyber security 8 Decarbonisation 1 Decentralised energy 5 Demand side management 2 Demand side response 2 Digitalisation 10 Distributed energy 10 Distribution 108 Electric vehicles EVs 4 Emissions 58 Energy management 1 Equipment 2 Europe 1061 Gas 372 Gas engine plant 59 Gas fuel 1 Horizon 2 Hydroelectric 17 Hydrogen 53 Hydropower 112 Latin America 75 Maintenance 3 Marine 1 Metering 2 microgrid 5 Middle East 312 North America 998 Nuclear 640 Offshore wind 119 Oil 16 Operations 4 Policy 8 Regulations 3 Renewables 752 smart grid 2 Solar 245 Storage 37 substation 8 Tepco 2 Tidal 2 Toshiba 4 Transmission 181 US Senate Washington 4 Wind 239

---

The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) has warned that the financial crisis in the country could result in its foreign electricity suppliers ceasing to provide supplies. ZESA has suffered from foreign currency shortages and liquidity problems for key payments.

Eskom supplies 300 MW at a cost of nearly $10.5 million monthly, while Mozambique’s Hydro Cahora Bassa (HCB) exports $2.6 million of electricity monthly to Zimbabwe.

John Chifamba, Chief Executive of ZESA, has warned that the country may not be able to meet its debt obligations to suppliers as it did not have a steady supply of foreign currency. He said: “As we stand now, we are in serious arrears on both accounts, Eskom of South Africa and HCB of Mozambique.”

Eskom is owed about $18 million, while HCB is owed about $9 million. ZESA warned that if it did not speedily access foreign currency, it would be forced to institute “massive load-shedding.”