ZESCO Limited says for the next 10 days, consumers will experience load shedding of up to 15 hours per day, citing a fault at one of the power producers.

In a statement today, Zesco public relations manager Hazel Zulu said this was effective April 8.

“ZESCO Limited wishes to inform its esteemed customers and the general public that there will be a reduction in power supply country-wide for a period of ten (10) days starting 8th April 2020, due to loss of supply of 132MW from one of the Independent Power Producers resulting from a fault on one of the generating units. The maintenance works will result in longer hours of load shedding of up to 15 hours per day,” Zulu stated.

“It should be noted that this additional load shedding has become essential in order to protect the power system from collapse and to ensure that the available power is distributed equitably to all our customers.”

The utility called on customers to switch to energy conservation initiatives and migrate to the use of gas and solar.

“We, however, continue to appeal to our customers to employ energy efficiency and conservation initiatives such as completely switching off lights and electrical appliances when not in use as well as consider migrating to the use of gas for cooking and solar for lighting. ZESCO deeply regrets the inconvenience this will cause to our esteemed customers,” stated Zulu.