Kapichira restoration raises hopes on power
Partial restoration of Kapichira Hydro Power Station in Chikwawa has raised hopes among stakeholders who feel the development will lessen power rationing and enable businesses maximise production.
Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) of Malawi on Wednesday evening announced that one of the machines at the 129.3 megawatt (MW) station was up and running, adding 32MW to the national grid.
Kapichira suffered extensive damage particularly at its intake dam following the flooding of the Shire River due to Tropical Storm Ana in January 2022. This forced Egenco to shut down the station, leading to electricity challenges in the country.
But briefing journalists during a tour of the station yesterday, Egenco chief executive officer William Liabunya said they are now 50 percent operational with two of the four machines running adding 64.8MW to the national grid.
He assured that by the end of the week, the third machine will be switched on while still working on installing the fourth one.
Said Liabunya: “We are still working on phase one, which is to reinstall generation. But we are also increasing the height of the coffer dam to 147 metres above sea level so that we should be able to bring in the third machine.
“We believe the works shouldn’t take a week and after that we should look at how we can bring in the fourth machine.”
He said, Egenco has so far spent K10 billion to rehabilitate the power station.
Reacting to the development in separate inter views yesterday, economist Dr Betchani Tchereni and Consumers Association of Malawi executive director John Kapito said the news was a relief.
Tchereni, who teaches economics at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Science, said industries and factories can now begin to function again and that the country can increase production.
He said: “However, we need to do more on power generation. Even now we are still below the 1 000MW generation by hydro power, meaning only less than 16 percent have access to electricity.
“We cannot allow this to continue. We need a decisive investment that will generate more electricity and then we can celebrate indeed.”
On his part, Kapito said the restoration of Kapichira has taken too long and going forward, consumers do not expect any excuses in terms of power supply.
Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) spokesperson Kitty Chingota said with the addition of two machines at Kapichira, customers should expect a reduction in the frequency of load-shedding from nine times a week to about about five or six times.
She emphasised that the duration of loadshedding will remain the same.
“Worth noting is that we still have a power supply deficit so load-shedding will continue until the power supply meets or exceeds the demand which presently stands at close to 400MW against availed capacity of 276MW,” said Chingota.
Initially, works on Kapichira dam, which commenced in July last year, were expected to be completed by December 2022, but were delayed following a change in design as well as the effects of Cyclone Freddy.
