20MW biomass plant in offing
Raiply Malawi Limited says it is discussing with other players to come up with a biomass power generation company to serve its factories and supply power to the national grid.
Speaking on Saturday when Minister of Natural Resources and Climate Change Eisenhower Mkaka visited the factories, Raiply chief executive officer Krishna Das said they expect the plant to be ready in two years.
He said: “We are in the final stage of negotiations and after that we will engage government to complete procedural issues.
“We are going for 20 megawatts (MW). About 12MW will power our factories and we will supply the surplus to the national grid.”
Das said the company has also ventured into production of electricity transmission poles and has started supplying them to the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi to save government from importing the same.
Mkaka said he will promote the purchase of the poles within government ranks.
“By buying the poles, we are actually creating employment for our people and at the same time, we will saveforex required to import such poles,” he said.
In 2020, Malawi University of Science and Technology (Must) delved into electricity generation by producing 60 kilowatts from agricultural wastes to power 400 households.
The public university, with a grant worth $30 000 (about K23 million) from the Science Granting Councils Initiative through the National Council for Science and Technology, developed a biomass gasification plant, which utilises rice husks to produce electricity.
A report titled ‘Tracking Sustainable Development Goal 7: The Energy Progress Report’ issued on June 1 2022 places Malawi among 20 countries with low access to electricity, as only 11 percent is connected to the national grid.
