- ZESCO says blackout is a result of a minor disturbance on its network
Zambian power utility ZESCO has explained the total power blackout that occurred over the weekend in the country. Speaking on the incident, the Public Relations Manager, Hazel Zulu, stated that the ”disturbance” was due to a loss of generation capacity.
“Preliminary investigations indicate that the cause of the disturbance was external to the Zambian interconnected power system,” Zulu said.
In a statement, South African utility Eskom stated that a significant incident (a drop in the transmission frequency on the Zambian network) affected the entire Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) and cut imports from the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric scheme in Mozambique for 2 hours. The SAPP is an interconnected system cutting across countries in the Southern African region.
”When the interconnector tripped it had an impact in Zimbabwe, leading to generators tripping. When this incident occurred we were already in stage 2 load-shedding and had a couple of incidents on our emergency reserves,” Eskom said.