Malawians should brace for more power outages following a fresh 42 megawatts (MW) generation shortfall which extends to 83MW during evening peak hours.
Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) said in a statement yesterday that available generation capacity currently stands at 347MW against peak demand of 430MW.
Escom further said the situation is likely to remain unstable until key generation units are restored with Nkula A expected to return to full operation by mid-September and Nkula B Unit 6, which suffered a major failure on August 7, expected back online by early October.
In all this, the Electricity Generation Company (Egenco), which earlier this week said was producing 370MW, is under pressure to quickly maintain its machines.
Reads the Escom statement: “Egenco’s Nkula B Unit 6 [20MW]: suffered a major failure on 7th August 2026 losing 20MW. The damage requires dismantling and shipping critical components to South Africa for specialised reconditioning. Restoration is expected by early October 2026.
“The loss of Nkula B has indirectly disrupted the stable integration of the recently commissioned 10 MW Egenco Solar PV facility, worsening the deficit on the consumer end.”
The statement added that at Egenco’s Nkula A, output remains restricted due to wornout shaft seals leading to a shortfall of 11.1 MW and that replacement spares are expected by late August, with repairs targeted for completion by mid-September 2026.
Egenco spokesperson Moses Gwaza was yet to respond to our questionnaire on the situation by press time yesterday at 9pm.
However, earlier this week he said Egenco is struggling to meet the growing demand for electricity in the face of lack of expanded access.
Gwaza said Malawi needs a deliberate and accelerated approach to expanding electricity generation if it is to effectively meet current and future demand.
He said: “Just as significant resources have been mobilised over the years for grid extension and electrification programmes mainly at distribution level, there is a need for dedicated financing mechanisms that supports the development of new generation projects.”
About 25.9 percent of the population has access to electricity, including grid and off-grid connections, , far below the 70 percent access by 2030.
Malawi has a total installed capacity of 564.2MW, comprising 401.8MW from hydro, 51.4MW from diesel and 111MW from solar sources as produced by Egenco and other players, according to Escom data.
