04 Nov 2022

Tube leaks at the Morupule B power station have prompted Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) to effect rotational load shedding.

Briefing the media yesterday, BPC marketing and communications manager Ms Dineo Seleke said the air leaks experienced at the beginning of the week were of high temperatures deemed dangerous for both the employees and the plant.

“The situation is expected to go on for a week, and in the interim, rotational load shedding management will help to avoid over-straining infrastructures since demand is high,” she said. 

She said they had not devised a programme of where and when the envisaged power cuts would happen because the situation was an emergency which needed careful analysis of consumption rate and voltage demand to populate a schedule.

Ms Seleke said a schedule with precise dates would be shared with the public immediately after it had been prepared.

Ms Seleke said an abrupt stop of power generation at the plant was necessary to prevent damages. “We do not want to find ourselves in a situation where we are on a total blackout as a country,” she said.

Given the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) market, Ms Seleke said in situations like these, the corporation normally leveraged bilateral relations with neighbouring countries to purchase electricity to maintain supply. However, she said this time around the case was different as neighbouring countries were experiencing difficulties in generating power as well.

“A similar phenomenon was reported to have surfaced in the previous financial year, where most countries across the region had general constraints in producing power, making it difficult for power purchases to effect smoothly across the region,” she said.

Ms Seleke said the exercise marked yet another safety approach that had to be taken to balance distribution patterns.

She was optimistic that the remedial works conducted across their plants would address the situation to avoid future air leaks. ENDS