HARARE – Zimbabwe was Tuesday morning hit by a sudden power outage that lasted over half an hour amid signs the country’s crippling energy crisis was not ending any time soon.

In a statement later in the day, Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) said the outage was unplanned and caused by “abrupt system disturbance” on its transmission lines.

“Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) would like to apologise to its valued customers for an unplanned nationwide power outage that happened at 1026HRS.

“This was due to an abrupt system disturbance on the Alaska-Warren high voltage transmission power lines (Linking Kariba and Harare). This has since been resolved by engineers,” said the company.

ZETDC urged customers to use power sparingly saying the national grid is still experiencing depressed generation.

Last Saturday, ZETDC announced there was increased load curtailment starting 24 September.

The troubled utility attributed the crisis to “technical challenges being experience at our Kariba and Hwange Power Stations as well as import constraints”.

The company said it was conducting a maintenance exercise to ensure full restoration.

According to a power generation statistics seen this past week, Munyati and Bulawayo power stations had literally grounded operations with zero megawatts being produced while Harare was producing 11 MW, Kariba 852MW, Hwange 166MW, bringing to 1029MW, the total being fed into the national grid daily..

Zimbabwe’s recurrent and often unannounced power cuts have impacted negatively on commerce as firms have been forced to ground operations with some now spending extra on alternative sources of energy to keep machines running.

Households, equally, have felt the strain after being forced to endure long hours everyday without power.

Tuesday’s unannounced power cut was received with trepidation from Zimbabweans who felt the power generator was taking the nation for a ride.

One citizen who is not too happy with the service rendered by the power utility is opposition CCC spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere who scolded the government entity for “gross incompetence”.

“The unending power cuts demonstrate gross incompetence on the part of @ZetdcOfficial. As if the failure to deliver power is not enough, they disrespect citizens & businesses alike by failing to give notice, communicate or give us a schedule they’ll adhere to. Do better,” Mahere posted on her Twitter handle Tuesday.