Zimbabwe is currently grap-pling with massive power short-ages and this has affected pro-ductivity in the mainstay areas

of the economy including agriculture, mining and manufacturing but has also reached as far as impacting health, ed-ucation and essential basic service de-livery. This is exacerbated by old elec-tricity equipment in most substations, which are prone to failure because they have outlived their life spans, causing a major threat to the availability and reli-ability of power supply.

Prince edward Dam Substation in the outskirts of Harare is one such pow-er facility, commissioned over 40 years ago, the substation had exceeded its life span by almost two decades.

“The supplies were no longer reli-able and even in terms of spares it was a challenge, for instance the switchgear was not only old but obsolete, we expe-rienced faults every month and we re-quired at least two or more days to look for alternatives from the other equally old substations because we could not get the spares anywhere. This meant that we had to switch off our clients for days while working on the substation,” said ZeSa Group Stakeholder Relations manager, mr. Fullard Gwasira.

Prince edward Dam Substation had two installed 4 mVa transformers, one developed a fault some years ago and it was no longer economically viable to repair due to the high repair costs com-pared to the cost of a new transformer. The substation’s major client is the Prince edward waterworks which con-sumes almost 5 mVa, hence, the recur-rent faults due to overloading. Prince edward waterworks supplies water to Chitungwiza, parts of Hatfield, water-falls, mbare, Sunningdale and mabvuku high density suburbs.

“we used to experience unreliable power supply, poor power quality and faults which, sometimes took up to three days to be addressed. This negatively impacted our operations as we had to use a generator which was costly and sometimes we were left incapacitated to supply water to the residents,” said Prince edward waterworks Superinten-dent, mr Shakespeare Nyambi.

intermittent power supply will often result in disruption of clean water sup-plies in households as well as essential institutions such as hospitals as pow-er outages affect the water treatment plants that supply the hospitals. The lack of water for even an hour in such essential institutions has serious im-plications for infection control and the health of patients and staff.

To help improve the availability and reliability of electricity supply at Prince edward Substation, the ZimFund under its second phase of emergency Power infrastructure Rehabilitation Project (ePiRP ii) rehabilitated and upgraded the substation through replacement of the old 4mVa transformer with a new 20 mVa transformer, including associ-ated works. The expected results of the project was to help key institutions and the surrounding urban settlements to benefit from increased availability and reliability of electricity, less load shed-ding and increased access to stable wa-ter supplies as a result of increased firm

substation capacity. The substation was completed in February this year and is now in service.

“To be stable as a substation we need-ed a 10 mVa transformer but we now have 20 mVa, which will cater for any future extensions and the surrounding urban settlements for the next ten years without the need of any additional work. we are now working on construct-ing electricity overhead line to supply St mary’s Clinic in Chitungwiza because we are now able to supply them suffi-ciently. all the faults due to overloading have been eliminated and we have not received any complaint from our main client (the waterworks) since we ener-gized the transformer,” said mr. Gwasi-ra.

This was corroborated by mr Nyam-bi who added; “we now have continu-ous power supply at the waterworks. in terms of faults, what used to take days now takes less than an hour to resolve. we have power daily because we are ex-empt from load shedding. we have not used the generator since they completed the works at the substation.”

However, despite the rehabilitation of Prince edward Substation under Zim-Fund; the people and key institutions such as health facilities have not been able to enjoy the full benefits brought about by the project due to the current drought the country is experiencing as a result of climate change.

The effects of climate change on reliable water suppliesZimbabwe is one of the countries in Southern africa currently facing first-hand the devastating effects of climate change. according to a report titled; Joint Call for Action to Address the Im-pacts of Climate Change and a Deepening Humanitarian Crisis in Southern Africa, jointly released recently by UNiCeF, FaO and world Food Programme; “wa-ter sources in drought-affected parts of the region have dried out or do not meet the minimum water demand, resulting in household water insecurity, lack of water in institutions (including schools and health facilities”.

For instance, Prince edward water-works with a capacity to produce 82 mil-lion litres of treated water daily is cur-rently producing 42 million litres twice a week due to low water levels at Seke Dam, its raw water abstraction point. The little water is sparingly distributed between residents and key institutions such as hospitals by Chitungwiza mu-nicipality.

“we are pumping for only seven hours a week, five hours on Saturday and two hours on wednesday,” said mr Nyambi.

This has forced residents to resort to unsafe water sources therefore, increas-ing the risk of waterborne diseases. On the other hand, some public institutions such as health facilities now rely on boreholes.

Commenting on the current water challenges at Chitungwiza Central Hos-pital, Chief executive Officer Dr enock mayida stated that the hospital last re-ceived reliable municipal water about five months ago and now dependent on four boreholes however, the water table has gone down. while talking to

this writer, a nurse came to Dr mayida to report that there was no water in the labour ward. Chitungwiza Central Hos-pital is currently receiving a lot of pa-tients as it is one of the few functional referral public hospitals in the greater Harare area.

“we really need continuous water supply as a hospital. Our plan is to build a 600 000 litres water tank to store wa-ter and ensure reliable supplies, we are only limited by financial constraints,” said Dr mayida.

Under ZimFund Urgent water Sup-ply and Sanitation Rehabilitation proj-ect phase one and phase two, the proj-ect rehabilitated Prince edward water works and brought it back to its full ca-pacity of 84ml a day and this increased water supply to Chitungwiza from 15million litres to over 30million litres a day. The project also replaced old and corroded pipelines, hence, ensured dai-ly reliable water supply to Chitungwiza Central Hospital which used to experi-ence frequent pipe bursts. The hospital only started to experience erratic water supply after Prince edward waterworks reduced pumping to two days a week fol-lowing low water level at the dam.

Commenting on measures that can be taken to address climate change ef-fects especially on water supplies in both urban and rural areas, ZimFund water and Sanitation Specialist, engi-neer Herbert Nyakutsikwa said that; “in future, there is need to build climate re-silient structures for storage, treatment and distribution of the water particu-larly to maximize storage and conserve the available water resource before and after treatment. This will help minimize evaporation, seepage and general leak-ages.”

according to the Zimbabwe infra-structure Report 2019 launched by the african Development bank recently, Hy-dro-dependency in the energy sector in the midst of erratic weather patterns is also placing increasing pressure on elec-tricity supply. while this is not unique to Zimbabwe, it requires careful risk management going forward.

ZimFund is a US$145 million Reha-bilitation of water & Sanitation and energy infrastructure programme, which was established in 2010 after the 2008 Cholera outbreak. The ZimFund programme is generously supported by the governments and people of Aus-tralia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. ZimFund is managed by the african Development bank (afDb) as part of its operations to improve quality of life in Zimbabwe. The african Devel-opment bank also funds water and san-itation projects in other locations such as bulawayo and marondera and other sectors in Zimbabwe including; agricul-ture, transport, social, private, financial and energy sectors.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ZimFund donors, the African Devel-opment Bank, its Board of Directors or the countries they represent. For feedback and more information kindly contact: ZimFund Communications via: s.mlot-shwa@afdb.org,and e.nzabanita@afdb.org.

ZimFund boosts capacity at Harare’s Prince Edward Substation

The transformer being placed on plinth at the Prince Edward Dam substation

20 MVA Transformer delivered at Prince Edward Dam Substation in April last year.

20MVA 33/11kV Transformer and associated works installed at Prince Edward Substation under ZimFund Power project.