Power outages force Raiply to shut down plant

Raiply Malawi Limited has shut down one of its plants that consumes two megawatts (MW) of electricity due to extensive load shedding by Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom).

Raiply electrical engineer Babu Priemkumar disclosed the news in an interview on the sidelines of a stakeholders meeting Escom hosted in Mzuzu on Thursday to inform Northern Region industries on extensive load shedding that it plans to embark on.

However, Priemkumar said the timber company is still paying the K5 million minimum charge on declared maximum demand consumption to Escom despite getting insufficient power.

He said Raiply is currently operating on one plant which runs on generators for 10 hours a day, costing the company K1.6 million daily.

Escom operations and power trading manager Patrick Kadewa commended Raiply for shutting down its plant although it is losing revenue.

He said as the situation is temporal, Escom will continue collecting the minimum declared maximum demand charge as the situation is a win-lose.

Kadewa said the power situation has gone from bad to worse; hence, other manufacturing industries should follow suit in a bid to save power as Escom has reduced production to 60 percent.

He said: “These efforts are what we are calling on from all industries in Malawi because we are in a situation where we cannot supply everybody. Otherwise, we will shed off.”

Kadewa said Escom is producing around 200MW on daily basis and cannot force itself to supply more than that.