THE SOUTHERN African Power Pool has appointed three consultants to provide various technical services aimed at ensuring the commencement of an interconnector project that will link the electricity grids of four countries in the region.

According to the SAPP Coordination Centre manager, Dr Lawrence Musaba, the German engineering consultancy firm Fichtner was appointed to provide transaction and technical advisory services to the ZiZaBoNa project while the Swedish firm SWECO has been selected to undertake an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the Zambian leg of the transmission line. ESIA has completed in Botswana, Namibia & Zimbabwe.

The contract to undertake project coordination and supervision was awarded to PhD Capital of South Africa. The African Development Bank (AfDB) is funding the consultants.

“Funding has now been released by AfDB and the project is expected to commence soon,” Musaba told the SADC Energy Thematic Group in Gaborone, Botswana in February.

Initiated in 2008, the ZiZaBoNa transmission line links Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia. Its development is expected to increase electricity trading among power utilities of the participating countries.

The interconnector aims to provide an alternative power transmission route in the SADC region and decongest the existing central power transmission corridor that passes through Zimbabwe.

The ZiZaBoNa project is expected to be implemented in two phases. The first phase of the project includes the construction of a 120-km 330kilovolt(kV) line from Hwange Power Station to Victoria Falls where a switching station will be built on the Zimbabwe side. The line will extend to a substation at Livingstone in Zambia.

The second phase involves the construction of a 300-km 330kV line from Livingstone to Katima Mulilo in Namibia, through Pandamatenga in Botswana.

The Zimbabwe-Zambia interconnector will be built as a high voltage line with a transmission capacity of 430kV. However, it will operate as a 330kV line during the first phase.

Once completed, the ZiZaBoNa project would, for example, make it possible for Namibia’s power utility, Nam-Power, to import electricity directly from Hwange Power Station in Zimbabwe. Electricity from the Hwange station is currently routed to Namibia through South Africa.

The SADC region is not yet fully integrated as Angola, Malawi and United Republic of Tanzania are not connected to the regional power pool.

This means that any new generation capacity installed in any of the three countries is not realised in the nine other SAPP members. These are Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.