Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) has said the Malawi-Mozambique Power Interconnection will roll out in December or January next year after missing the October deadline.
The 218-kilometre (km) 400 kilovolts high voltage power transmission line project, which links Matambo substation in Mozambique and Phombeya substation in Balaka to feed 50 megawatts (MW) into the Malawi national grid, also missed deadlines in October and December 2024 and June this year.
In an interview on Tuesday, the project coordinator Maxwell Mulimakwenda confirmed that the project will be completed this year because the October target was unlikely due to slight delays experienced in Mozambique.
He said: “On Malawi side, we completed all the project works in August on readiness for commissioning, but considering that it is a joint project, we are waiting for the works to be finalised in Mozambique’s side.
“The latest report that we received from Mozambique is that they experienced some slight delays and the final works are expected to continue this month until somewhere in November.”
Mulimakwenda, who is Escom chief operating officer, said the commissioning should be expected in December 2025 or early January 2026.
On the missing multiple of deadlines, he earlier attributed it to delays faced in Mozambique due complex geographical feature that slowed construction works and post elections conflict which disrupted works.
“This is because the project had faced delays due to post election conflicts that forced works to stop, so considering that it is one project, the commissioning will wait until the Mozambique side is completed,” said Mulimakwenda.
In a separate interview, Ministry of Energy director of electricity Million Mafuta said they expect testing to be conducted by end October while project completion is expected in November.
“We are still looking at tapping 50MW and we are optimistic that the interconnector will be completed this year based on the progress of works on both sides,” he said.
Malawi reviewed its earlier plan of tapping 120MW from the project, saying it would have cost about $10 million (K17.4 billion) a month.
But Mafuta said Malawi will in the first five years get 50MW at about $4.5 million (about K7.8 billion) per month.
In an interview on Tuesday, former minister of Energy Grain Malunga described the project as key to the country’s production sector, which needs stable energy to thrive.
He said: “I believe this project is achievable only if priority is given to the energy and production sectors. That is to say give the energy sector the needed resources to generate electricity and support manufacturing, mining and agriculture sectors.”
The power interconnector is one of the projects expected to improve the local power shortage with Malawi missing its target of hitting 1 000MW power supply by 2025.
Currently, Malawi has a total installed capacity of 554.24MW of power of which 101MW is from solar sources, according to Escom Limited.
The project works started in March 2023, with the Indian firm Larsen and Toubro Limited as the contractor.
The power interconnector will also upgrade the country’s profile from an observer to a fully operational member of the Southern African Power Pool.
In May this year, the World Bank approved a $350 million (about K613 billion) grant for the Mpatamanga Hydropower Storage Project aimed at doubling the country’s electricity generation capacity and connecting over one million new households to the national grid.
The country’s largest energy investment to date, is expected to generate 1 544 gigawatt-hours of clean energy annually once operational in January 2031.
