Botswana Relies on Electricity Imports as Biggest Plant Fails All units of the biggest power plant in Botswana, the world’s biggest diamond producer, are down, leaving the southern African nation to rely on imports to meet its needs, the electricity utility said. “There is currently no unit running at Morupule B,” Mines and Energy Minister Kitso Mokaila said in an e-mailed statement today from Gaborone, the capital. “The boilers and the heat exchanges have been a problem for the power station. We are now wholly supported by imports from the Southern African Power Pool,” whose biggest contributor is South African state-owned utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., he said. Peak demand in Botswana is 500 megawatts. Units 1 and 2, both down because of boiler leaks, are due to return to service on Oct. 21 and 23 respectively, he said. There is no scheduled date for the resumption of the third unit, which stopped working on Oct. 8. Unit 4 should be in service by the end of the month. South Africa’s Eskom struggles to meet demand for power by the continent’s second-biggest economy as it contends with aging plants and delays in the construction of what will be Africa’s third- and fourth-biggest coal-fired plants. Botswana has shortlisted eight companies to expand the plant’s capacity to 900 megawatts, Botswana Power Co., the state-owned utility that manages the plant, said on June 18. The country’s 120-megawatt Morupule A plant was idled in August 2012, and the nation is looking to bring it back into operation. (bloomberg)
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 03:21:48 +0000
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