- Tsaone Segaetsho
Minister of Minerals and Energy, Bogolo Kenewendo, on Tuesday provided an update on the ongoing power crisis, which has resulted in rotational cyclic load shedding affecting households and businesses since last Monday.
Kenewendo informed the nation in a statement of emergency that local electricity generation and demand had exceeded supply. As a result, the national electricity utility, Botswana Power Corporation (BPC), made the decision to commence rotational load management to align national demand with the available supply.
The national power station, Morupule B, has been plagued by technical and mechanical defects, which Kenewendo said occur “from time to time.”
“To remedy defects, units must be shut down in sequency for remedial works, which take approximately eleven (11) months to complete,” said Kenewendo.
Morupule B has faced challenges dating back to 2013, failing to meet both national and international expectations for a power plant of its size.
These ongoing issues have culminated in the current national crisis of power outages due to load shedding.
“Currently, the country is experiencing low internal generation precipitated by the cascaded failure of Morupule B Unit 2 (on 14 February 2025) and Unit 4 (22 March 2025), while Unit 3 is in long-term planned outages for defects remediation. This leaves only one unit in service, which is operating at a reduced load of 105MW instead of 150MW due to defects which require an outage to remedy,” explained Kenewendo.
Compounding BPC’s challenges is its longstanding debt of over P2 billion to its creditors, including Morupule Coal Mine. Botswana now remains reliant on electricity imports from South Africa’s Eskom.
As a mitigation measure, Kenewendo stated that the government would need to increase electricity tariffs in the short to medium term.
However, she noted that Morupule B Unit 2 is scheduled to return to service on 17 April 2025, while Unit 4 is set to resume operations on Tuesday. This, according to Kenewendo, is aimed at alleviating public anxiety amid the ongoing national power crisis.
Kenewendo also revealed that she is scheduled to meet South Africa’s Minister of Energy, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, to renegotiate for a stable, guaranteed electricity supply at reasonable rates.
