Page 1 sur 1

Zesco delays completion of Maamba' coal-fired plant

MessagePosté: Ven 11 Avr 2014 14:47
de LesCrozes
Zesco delays completion of Maamba Collieries' coal-fired plant
By Gift Chanda
Fri 11 Apr. 2014

MAAMBA Collieries says it has been forced to shelve to December the completion of its 300 megawatt coal-fired power plant following Zesco's delay to construct a transmission line into the national grid.
Head of corporate affairs, Janardhan Lavu, said the completion date initially set for August this year had been delayed to allow Zesco to build a key 330 Kilovolt (KV) double circuit transmission out of the thermal power plant.
"Zesco needs to upgrade the power line from Kafue to Muzuma and they have indicated they will do it by the end of this year," he said. "We had to revise our schedule to meet with Zesco. So we were targeting to complete building the power plant at the end of the year."
Lavu said it would not have made sense to commission the power plant without the transmission line being ready.
"It would be awkward to have the plant running when you cannot transmit the power, so we had to synchronise those two targets," he said. "But Zesco is committed to completing the line by December."
Lavu said the company had done about 68 per cent work on the power plant.
According to a detailed layout of the project, the plant would initially produce 150 Mega Watts (MW) and later add another 150 MW before ultimately increasing output to 600 MW.
Last year, Zesco managing director, Cyprian Chitundu, said the transmission lines would be ready by the time of commissioning the power plant.