According to Bogolo Kenewendo, Botswana's Minister of Minerals & Energy, the current power situation, which has seen the country experiencing rolling blackouts, are caused by low power generation as a result of the unavailability of three units at the Morupule B power station.
Another contributing factor is a shortage of power in the region.
Addressing parliament, Kenewendo said that currently, only one of Morupule B's four power units is operational, albeit at a reduced capacity of 105 megawatts instead of the optimal 150 megawatts.
Of the three failed units, Unit 2 failed on 14 February, Unit 4 on the 22nd of March while Unit 3 is on a long term planned outage.
Factoring the time needed to get the units back online as well as efforts to procure power from neighbouring countries, the current power situation is only expected to alleviate mid-June 2025.
"However, it should be noted that the security of supply will only be at the desired level post 2027 when new coal fired base load generation would be on the grid," Kenewendo said.
Image source: Sunday Standard