Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) says given the pace of progress in the Malawi-Mozambique Power Interconnection Project, it is upbeat that by September Mozambique will be feeding 50 megawatts (MW) into the national grid.
Initially, Escom indicated that the project would be in place by October this year after post-election conflicts in Mozambique forced work to stop at Matambo Substation in that country’s Tete Province.
But speaking yesterday on the sidelines of a visit by a team from the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) at Phombeya Substation in Balaka, Escom system and market operations manager Mike Mkayenda said works in Malawi and at Matambo Substation have progressed well such that the interconnector project is 70 percent complete.
He said: “At Phombeya, the major work being undertaken is stringing the conductor wires to the towers and the expectation is that by July we will be ready.
“In Mozambique, works are also progressing and our counterparts have told us that the substation will be ready by September.”
Malawi initially planned to tap 120MW at about $10 million (K17.4 billion) a month but it was reduced to 50MW at about $4.5 million (about K7.8 billion) per month in the first five years.
Mkayenda said the 50MW will address power deficit challenges which force the company to shed 40MW at night.
Former minister of energy Grain Malunga told The Nation in February that the project is key to the country’s production sector which needs stable energy to thrive.
The team which visited Phombeya included officials from Mozambique’s electricity utility company Electricidade de Moçambique, Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority and SAPP which is responsible for monitoring the electricity market in Southern Africa.
The power-interconnection project comprises erection of 218-kilometre (km) 400 kilovolts high voltage power transmission line to feed about 50MW into the Malawi national grid.
It is one of the projects expected to improve the local power shortage with Malawi likely unable to meet its target of hitting 1 000MW power supply by 2025.
Currently, Malawi has a total installed capacity of 554.24MW comprising 401.8MW from hydro, 51.4MW from diesel power generation and 101MW from solar sources, according to Escom.
