Partial blackouts occur regularly in Tanzania, which relies on hydro,
natural gas and heavy fuel oil to generate electricity. PHOTO | FILE |
NATION MEDIA GROUP
Tanzania was hit by a country-wide blackout early on
Thursday due to a technical glitch in its national power grid, the
country’s state-run electricity supplier said.
“A
technical fault ... caused all regions connected to the national power
grid to lose electricity supply,” the Tanzania Electric Supply Company
(Tanesco) said in a statement.
The outage occurred at around 0400 GMT (7am local time) on Thursday, and it was still trying to fix the fault, the company said.
Partial
blackouts occur regularly in Tanzania, which relies on hydro, natural
gas and heavy fuel oil to generate electricity. Many businesses use
power generators as backups, pushing up their operating costs.
Tanzania
invited bids in August to build a 2,100-megawatt (MW) hydroelectric
plant in a World Heritage site renowned for its animal population,
despite opposition from conservationists to the long-delayed project.
Tanzanian
president John Magufuli is personally backing the project at Stiegler’s
Gorge in the Unesco-designated Selous Game Reserve and sees it as vital
to diversify Tanzania’s energy mix and end chronic electricity
shortages.
The
project would more than double the country’s current power generation
capacity of around 1,500MW. The government did not say how much the
project would cost and how it would raise financing, but wants it
completed within three years.
Tanzania’s energy
infrastructure has suffered from decades of underinvestment, neglect and
corruption allegations, and investors have long complained that the
lack of reliable power hurts business in East Africa’s third biggest
economy.
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