Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) says high water levels in the Shire River following heavy rainfall in the Southern Region have led to silt accumulation in power stations, choking part of its generation capacity.
The water is also causing excessive and accelerated wear of turbine underwater parts, including shaft seals, the power company said in response to our questionnaire.
Data from Egenco indicate that 114.9 megawatts (MW) from hydropower stations are out of the national grid due to damaged machines in power stations.
Egenco spokesperson Moses Gwaza said the 129.6MW Kapichira Power Station in Chikwawa District is running at 50 percent generation capacity while two machines at Tedzani Power Station in Blantyre District with 50.1MW installed capacity are also offline.
Gwaza said: “At Kapichira, unit three, representing 32.4MW, has a faulty generator, and installation work is underway to replace it while unit four with 32.4MW is under maintenance to replace turbine shaft seals, and the works are earmarked for completion by next week.”
At Tedzani Power Station, Tedzani III unit five with an installed capacity of 31 MW is out of service due to faulty generator stator windings, and according to Gwaza, Egenco is negotiating with the original equipment manufacturer from Austria to carry out the repairs.
Another faulty machine is Tedzani IV unit seven with an installed capacity of 19.1MW, is offline due to excessive silt accumulation at the intake.
“Overall, we are working tirelessly day and night to bring back all these machines and stabilise power generation in the country,” Gwaza said.
On Sunday, the country experienced a nationwide power outage while on Monday morning; the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) implemented emergency load shedding.
Escom issued a statement indicating that the power outage was due to a temporary power supply deficit arising from trash accumulation, took out 111.7MW at Nkula A and Nkula B power stations.
In its load shedding schedule for February 24 to March 1, 2025, Escom customers are divided into six groups, with three experiencing blackout for at least three hours per day.
However, reports indicate that consumers are facing longer hours of load shedding than the three hours indicated.
Meanwhile, the Chamber for Small and Medium Businesses Association executive secretary James Chiutsi has said the power challenges have hit operations of small businesses.
“Small business owners use the money they make to buy food and repay loans, so the power challenges are affecting their livelihoods.”
In a public notice yesterday, Blantyre Water Board said power challenges have disrupted normal pumping operations over the past three days, resulting in unstable water levels.
The power challenges come three weeks after Escom hiked electricity tariffs to an average of K142.98 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) from the previous K123.26 per kWh..
The Malawi Government planned to generate 1 000MW of power by 2025, but the target is unlikely to be met due to poor or delayed responses from potential investors in the power sector.
