Clouds break over water, power crisis
Mbongeni Mguni | Friday March 4, 2016 13:07
The appearance of a dove carrying a leaf in her beak and descending on the top table would no doubt have stunned many in the Boipuso Hall conference room where Minerals, Energy and Water Resources minister, Kitso Mokaila briefed on the water and power situation on Tuesday.
But as shocking and surreal as such a scene would have been, it also would have been the perfect metaphor for the impressions many were left with after Mokaila delivered his most positive briefing yet on the long running water and power crises.
Mokaila, who has fought a largely thankless battle against the crisis since his appointment in 2012, may have, on some level, felt like the Biblical Noah, seeing this dove skim over to him, above a world of water, clutching the sign of hope in its beak. Weary after his own “40 days of rain and darkness” spent steering a ship called Despair, the clouds are finally breaking. And, land is in sight.
Electricity
A crisis that began in 2008 with the phased reduction of supplies from Eskom and was then worsened by troubles at Morupule B, could reach its weakest this year, according to Mokaila and his lieutenants.
This year, Mokaila expects at least three units from 120MW Morupule A power station to return to operation, more than three years after the plant was mothballed due to an adverse cost-benefit analysis. “We are very confident that one unit will be up and running by August 2016 and two others by November,” Mokaila said at the briefing.
“The other unit, which was the worst affected, is expected next year. Progress is going very well and I’m happy that we took the decision to refurbish it.
“The idea is to reduce our reliance on diesel-generated electricity.” Beacons of hope are also beaming at Morupule B, the 600MW power station whose well-chronicled troubles are largely behind the six-year electricity crisis. According to Mokaila, the four 150MW units at the plant were able to run from August last year to early February without unplanned outages, marking their longest uninterrupted run of operation.
Engineers had hoped to run the units for 14 months on the trot, which would allow for the replacement of the problematic boilers one by one, as part of the remedial repairs announced last year.
However, the intricately woven plans unravelled three weeks ago when three units crashed and the other was taken down for statutory inspection.
“From about August last year, everything had been running hunky-dory and we had a little bit of stability, but not enough. We are not getting to this stability, but it’s positive that we had the units running for longer than they had ever run,”’ Mokaila said.
Mindful of winter’s approach, the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) expects Unit 4 to return to action by March 12, Unit 2 by March 26 and Unit 1 by April 30. Unit 3 is already running and contributing 130MW supply.
In total, P1.5 billion will be required for remedial works at Morupule B, with Mokaila budgeting P45 million for the upcoming 2016-2017 financial year.
“We need at least three units running which, with our 195MW diesel plants, give us national supply stability. “That’s the plan, but it’s also important to say that currently there’s enough power in the Southern African Power Pool.
“South Africa has assured us that they will keep supporting us. “If something happens to them, it will happen to us, but we are working overtime to make sure all Morupule B’s units are up.”
Thus far this year, updates from South Africa’s Eskom have been bright, with the first 794MW unit from the 4,800MW Medupi Power Station coming into operation in August 2015. Rapid progress is also being made at the 4,800MW Kusile plant, while long-running refurbishment has been completed at several older plants.
Water
The year 2016 began on an uncharacteristically positive note for water supply in the South, with water flowing consistently from taps and breaking from a year of traumatising supply cuts.
The paradox was made sharper by successive heatwaves and declining levels at Letsibogo Dam, which has been the Greater Gaborone area’s lifeline for most of the period since Gaborone Dam’s demise in December 2014.
According to Mokaila and Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) officials, the peace has largely been due to higher levels at Bokaa Dam, which in a matter of weeks, shot up from about two percent to its current 48 percent.
In addition, the North-South Carrier has held up since its last repairs, providing critical supplies from Dikgatlhong Dam and complementing Bokaa, the Ramotswa and Masama wellfields, as well as Nnywane and Molatedi dams in supplying Greater Gaborone.
Some consternation has, however, been caused by announcements that the Mmamashia Water Treatment plant will close for repairs, disturbing the four-month uninterrupted water supply to Greater Gaborone.
The plant treats water from Letsibogo, Dikgatlhong, the Masama wellfields and Bokaa Dam, representing over 90 percent of the Greater Gaborone’s supply. The 16-year old plant’s capacity has declined over the years, from its optimal 110 million litres of water a day, to the current 70 million litres, necessitating the refurbishment.
While supply will decline – and to this end a rationing schedule was published yesterday – Mokaila says plans are in place to minimise the impact. “We thought we could ride out the summer and repair in winter, but as it is, our plan is to have Mmamashia operating optimally,” he said.
“The plant has four units and we will take one out every month for refurbishing and as soon as the work on that unit is done, it will be reintegrated, operating at its best, treating more water than before.
“Every month there should be an improvement of water coming into Gaborone because the throughput will be higher. We will shut it down systematically.
“We cannot compromise the quality or quantity we give to Batswana.” Drilling of 25 boreholes in Masama West started in January, while the construction of Pump Station No. 4 along the North-South Carrier, to increase the volume of water through the pipeline, is due for tender.
The two projects are due complete by October 2017 and will collectively add 80 million litres of water to the Greater Gaborone area. However, the rosiest news on the water front is the projections from regional and global climatologists on the El Nino phenomenon’s trend in the 2016 rain season in Botswana.
The phenomenon is behind the successive droughts in the country and the region, which have decimated communal and commercial agriculture, added numbers to Ipelegeng and other social safety nets, while threatening food security and inflation.
This year, however, climatologists expect El Nino to ease during the October to March rain season.
“The models predict that the current strong El Nino has peaked and will start to decay in the Southern Hemisphere autumn and the tropical Pacific will return to a neutral state by the Southern Hemisphere winter in 2016,” Meteorological Services department head, Thabang Botshoma said recently.
Even Gaborone Dam is showing signs of life, with the numerous dams that fill it, reportedly full.
The dam’s level has risen from 1.7 to 2.3 percent, meaning the anticipated better rain season this year will result in considerable recovery.
On the day that the levels at the dam rise, a dove with a leaf in its beak, wading on the water, will again be the perfect metaphor for a parched region.