ZESA Holdings has successfully restored power to the majority of bulk supply points across the country following a national blackout caused by a major fault on the electricity network.
The power utility said the outage occurred at 18:24 hours after a fault on the Warren-Alaska 330kV line resulted in the loss of interconnections with neighbouring regional utilities and local generation instability.
“ZESA Holdings wishes to provide a further update to our valued stakeholders on the progress made in restoring power nationwide following the national blackout,” the company said.
ZESA said restoration efforts began at 19:01 hours, with electricity supplies restored through Eskom, Kariba Power Station, Hydro Cabora Bassa and Hwange Units 1, 2 and 3.
“Restoration efforts commenced at 1901 hours, successfully getting supplies from Eskom, Kariba Power Station, Hydro Cabora Bassa and Hwange Units 1, 2, and 3,” ZESA said.
The utility said power had been restored to most bulk supply points by 22:00 hours, while engineers continued working on remaining areas.
“We are pleased to advise that by 2200 hours, power had been successfully restored to most of our bulk supply points across the country,” ZESA said.
The company said technical teams were working to synchronise the remaining units at Hwange Power Station and attend to works at Warren Substation.
ZESA apologised to customers affected by the outage and said efforts were underway to restore full system stability.
