Escom looks to east for power interconnection

Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) has unveiled plans to tap power from the 11-country Eastern Africa Power Pool (Eapp) besides the Southern Africa Power Pool (Sapp) to boost the country’s electricity capacity.

Escom chief operations officer Maxwell Mulimakwenda said in an interview last week, the country’s strategic geographic position presents an opportunity to interconnect with countries outside southern Africa.

He said: “Other than the Malawi-Mozambique Interconnection Project, which comes to fruition next year, we also have plans to interconnect with other countries.

“We want to take advantage of the Eastern Africa Power Pool and the vision is that we integrate with this and tap power from Tanzania.”

To achieve this, Mlimakwenda said they will develop a transmission line from Songwe in Karonga to Bwengu in Rumphi and link it to existing infrastructure to access power from Tanzania, at least by 2025.

“Our colleagues from Tanzania have already gone far with the project and have done detailed studies on the project because they too are interested in the project.

“As a country in the centre, we cannot afford to miss opportunities to boost our energy capacity. The largest vision is to create a transmission corridor between Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique,” he said.

Meanwhile, Escom is also working on the Malawi-Mozambique Power Interconnector Project, which is designed to connect Mozambique and Malawi power transmission systems, to enable both countries to engage in bilateral and regional power trade in the Sapp.

The main undertakings of the project include the construction of a 218-kilometre, 400 kilovolts (kV) high-voltage alternating current transmission line, grid connections and associated infrastructure, including substation works.

In 2019, the World Bank gave Mozambique $42 million (about K42.7 billion) grant while Malawi received $15 million (about K15.2 billion) as credit towards the project.

Energy consultant Grain Malunga, who is also a former minister of Energy, said in an interview that as the country is facing power deficits, efforts to ease power shortages are crucial and welcome.

He said: “Malawi is energy hungry where the country is still far away from achieving our energy needs.

“We see and hope that such projects along with other long-term energy projects would bring efficient energy and reliable supply in the county.”

Ministry of Energy says the country needs about 618 megawatts (MW) to power industries and households without loadshedding.

Malawi is struggling to produce adequate power, with only 10 percent of the country’s 18 million people having access to electricity, according to the Malawi Sustainable Energy Investments Report.

Currently, the main source of electricity in the country is hydro-power which accounts for nearly 90 percent of the power.

The projected demand of 618MW is against the current Electricity Generation Company’s installed capacity of 539MW.

The Eapp is a regional institution established in 2005 to coordinate cross-border power trade and grid interconnection among nations of the Eastern Africa region.

It has 11 member countries that signed the Inter-Governmental Memorandum of Understanding and 14 utilities that signed the Inter Utility Memorandum of Understanding.