Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) has warned of nationwide power cuts in the coming week as it implements load shedding to avoid total system collapse caused by power supply constraints.
The state owned power utility on Wednesday said it was experiencing power supply constraints due to forced outages at its power generation plants, with the situation even made worse by shortage of electricity generation capacity in the southern African region.
BPC’s marketing and communications manager, Dineo Seleke, said the nation’s mega power plant Morupule B was experiencing tube air leaks which caused high temperatures that are potentially dangerous to the plant and employees. As of Thursday, BPC had already started implementing its load management, drawing a wave of criticism as it plunged households and businesses across the country into darkness, with power going out for more than 10 hours in some areas.
It is the latest blow to the power plant which until recently appeared to be functioning normally after many years of underperforming. The 600MW coal powered plant was commissioned in 2012, gobbling nearly P10 billion, but has never been fully functional, with only half of the four units functioning most at a time.
Remedial works commenced in June 2019 on Unit 4, and works on the remaining three units is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2023. The power station performed badly in 2020/21 financial year, with an availability rate of 29 percent, down to delays in the commissioning of Unit 4.
Data from Statistics Botswana’s electricity generation and distribution report covering the six months of 2022 revealed that local power generation had greatly improved so much this year that BPC even toyed with the idea of exporting power to neighboring countries.
The increase in domestic power generation was mainly on account of improved output from Morupule power plants accounting for 99.3 percent of generated electricity. Matshelagabedi and Orapa emergency power plants contributed 0.4 and 0.3 percent respectively.
“BPC has therefore started engaging Eskom to purchase the excess electricity supply generated during off-peak times (weekends) in order to protect our plants against load management fluctuations and also to ensure that surplus electricity has a secured market,” BPC said in a statement in July.
The Index of Electricity Generation (IEG) stood at 223 in the second quarter of 2022, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 85.5 percent compared to 120.2 recorded during the corresponding quarter in 2021. Similarly, the quarter-on-quarter comparison showed an increase of 46.8 percent, from 151.9 during the first quarter of 2022 to 223.0 during the current quarter.
The physical volume of electricity generated jumped by 85.5 percent, from 505,313 MWH during the second quarter of 2021 to 937,597 MWH in the second quarter of this year. The quarter-on-quarter perspective showed that local electricity generation increased by 46.8 percent from 638,501 MWH during the first quarter of 2022.
As a result of increased local production, the volume of imported electricity decreased by 65 percent from 463,171 MWH registered in the second quarter of 2021 to 162,340 MWH during the second quarter of 2022. On a quarterly comparison, imported electricity decreased by 55.8 percent from 367,001 MWH recorded in the first quarter.
Eskom was the main source of imported electricity at 46.5 percent of total electricity imports. The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) accounted for 32.7 percent, while the remaining 17.1, 1.9 and 1.8 percent were sourced from Cross-border electricity markets, the Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation Limited (ZESCO) and Nampower. Cross-border electricity markets are arrangements whereby towns and villages along the border are supplied with electricity directly from neighbouring countries such as Namibia and Zambia. Electricity generated locally contributed 85.2 percent to electricity distributed during the second quarter of 2022, compared to a contribution of 52.2 percent during the same quarter in 2021. The quarter-on-quarter comparison shows that the contribution of electricity generated to electricity distributed increased by 21.7 percentage points compared to the 63.5 percent contribution during the first quarter of 2022.
