According to a statement from the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC), a “grid disturbance” caused an outage of both Morupule A and B power plants, which supply almost all of the country’s electricity. This caused a “countrywide blackout”, according to the BPC. The outage also hit the transmission power line that connects Botswana to South Africa. Botswana was exporting 60MW of power at the time. Last year, Botswana offered to sell Eskom off-peak generated electricity. However, the country also still imports electricity from Zambia and South Africa amid performance problems at Morupule. In a statement shared on social media, the BPC said that the Morupule power plants, near Palapye in the centre of the country, are currently being restarted. Load shedding has been implemented. Botswana last had occasional load shedding last year – for the first time since 2015.
SOURCE: NEWS 24