Harare — The country is likely to experience acute power deficits after complete loss of power generation at Hwange Thermal Power Station.

In a statement yesterday, Zesa Holdings spokesperson Mr Fullard Gwasira said the station experienced 25 instant shutdowns in the last 45 days resulting in equipment damage that has led to complete loss of generation at the country's second largest power plant.

Hwange Power Station has been producing about 200 megawatts of electricity from two out of six working units.

"These forced outages caused complete loss of generation at Hwange and in the process resulting in major equipment damage," he said.

Mr Gwasira said the Southern African Power Pool was investigating the situation and would soon make recommendations to address the system challenges at regional level.

This means that the country's power supply has now dropped to the 750MW produced at Kariba. Zimbabwe has a peak demand of 2 200MW of electricity.

Government and China are currently in negotiations in which the latter has expressed interest in investing in the construction of new power plants and refurbishment of existing infrastructure.

Wear and tear and vandalism have taken their toll on Zimbabwe's electricity infrastructure.