Tanzanians have to brace themselves up for more power rationing as their sole electricity supplier had just announced a renewed nationwide power shedding scheme starting on Thursday.

The Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited announced that electricity would be switched off for 12 hours from seven o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock in the evening.

The company explained in a statement that renewed power rationing had been necessitated by a drop in water levels at the Kidatu and Kihansi hydropower dams in central Tanzania.

The statement attributed the sudden drop in water levels at reservoirs to lack of rainfall in these two dams' catchment areas.

Failure of rainfall during the short rain season, coupled with the breakdown of a powerful transformer in Dar es Salaam, already led to three months of power rationing.

Some residents in Dar es Salaam had to make do with six hours of electricity supplies during the summer months when the power shedding scheme was at its strictest.

The Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited had just eased power rationing following the restoration of the transformer and the onset of the long rain season that brought some rainfalls to and around the hydropower dams.

Tanzania has been relying on hydropower for the past four decades, with seven hydropower plants combining to boast of an installed electricity generating capacity of 656 megawatts.

Yet due to the failure of rainfall in the short rain season late last year and early this year, these hydropower plants were only operating at 30 percent of their capacity, thus causing a nationwide power rationing.

Tanzania's demand for electricity is 550 megawatts while its actual power consumption is around 400 megawatts for the time being.

The country has been resorting to natural gas-fired turbines to compensate for the electricity shortfall.

The steadily decreasing rainfall in recent years have forced the Tanzanian authorities to consider diversifying electricity generation so as to reduce sole reliance on hydropower, though affluent in the country but unreliable.

Natural gas is one source of energy for this power generating diversification program while coal stands the other.

Source: Xinhua