Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) says it expects to restore about 31 megawatts (MW) of electricity by mid-November when maintenance works at Nkula A and Nkula B hydro power stations are completed.
Briefing Minister of Energy Jean Mathanga who toured Nkula power plants yesterday, Egenco chief executive officer William Liabunya said Unit 6 at Nkula B, with an installed capacity of 20MW, is expected to be restored by the end of October while repairs at Nkula A are scheduled for completion by mid-November.
At Nkula A, Egenco is generating 24MW against an installed capacity of 35.1MW due to faults affecting three units.
Liabunya said Egenco ordered spare parts for the affected units in May and expects them this week.
He said engineers will move to Nkula A after completing work on Nkula B Unit 6, installing the spare parts at one unit at a time.
Initially, Egenco planned to restore full generation capacity at Nkula A by the end of September while Nkula B Unit 6 was scheduled to return to service in the first week of October.
Meanwhile, Liabunya said Egenco has established an El Niño Task force to ensure mitigating measures are in place against possible drought or heavy rainfall during the current rainy season.
In her remarks, Mathanga said she was impressed with the restoration efforts and maintained her earlier commitment that power outages should be reduced by December.
On the Malawi-Mozambique power interconnector, through which Malawi is expected to import 50MW of electricity, she said relevant authorities in the two countries are finalising tariff negotiations.
“We want the tariffs offered by Mozambique to be in line with what we are offering locally so that consumers are not burdened,” she said.
Egenco’s restoration drive comes amid electricity supply challenges, which have forced the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi Limited to implement daily loadshedding schedule for October 18–24 showing power outage periods ranging from three and a half hours to five hours across residential and industrial customer groups.
Malawi has a total installed generation capacity of 564.2MW, comprising 401.8MW from hydro, 51.4MW from diesel and 111MW from solar sources supplied by Egenco and other players, according to Escom data.
