Malawians to face extended blackout
Malawians should brace for long hours of loadshedding as Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) undertakes maintenance works at Nkula B Hydro-Power Station in Blantyre from tomorrow to December 18 2020.
The development has compelled Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) to revise its loadshedding schedule from tomorrow to Monday December 19 2022 due to reduction in available power supply.
In a statement issued yesterday, Escom said the country will only have about 171 megawatts (MW) to supply to essential services such as hospitals and water pumping stations in all the regions.
Reads the statement in part: “Therefore, all domestic and industrial customers will be subjected to an average of 17.5 hours of loadshedding.
“Customers are advised to switch off electrical appliances during the stated period as power supply may be restored earlier than anticipated.”
In its statement issued earlier, Egenco said there will be an emergency outage of Nkula B Power Station to repair the damaged bypass pipe.”
The company stated that the machine was taken out from operation because of a leakage in the upstream bypass because of a fault that was developed on December 5 2022 that led to the national power blackout.
Consumers Association of Malawi executive director John Kapito yesterday described the situation as “very unfortunate”. He said it will deactivate the Christmas mood.
He said: “One begins to question what is happening in this country where things are not working. We, as consumers, we are left helpless and what is coming out now is an insult.”
This year, Malawi has experienced several national power blackouts since January 24 due to Cyclone Ana followed by the second in February due to debris in the system following Cyclone Ana.
