System fault dims Malawi

Hitherto used to minimal disruptions in power supply, Malawians yesterday endured a nationwide outage which Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) attributed to system shutdown whose cause was under probe at press time at 8pm.

Following the outage that occurred around 1.45pm, businesses were forced to resort to alternative power sources such as standby generators.

Escom swiftly posted a notice on its social media platforms informing the public about the development and efforts being made to restore supply.

However, the reaction from the public was mostly negative with people expressing their frustration.

In an interview yesterday, Escom public relations manager Kitty Chingota said the system shutdown at 1.45 pm, cutting supply nationwide.

She said the company’s engineers immediately started investigating and working on the problem to restore power.

According to Chingota by 3.50pm power had been restored in some parts of Blantyre while engineers worked to rectify the problem.

She said: “I hope by the end of today, we will have normalised the situation. As for the cause, we are still investigating and once we establish the cause, we will let the public know.”

In its notice after the outage, the power supplier said the cause of the system shutdown was yet to be established.

Meanwhile, the Consumers Association of Malawi (Cama) has blamed the company for the outage and said there was a need for a proper explanation of the cause.

Cama executive director Joseph Kapito told The Nation in an interview yesterday that the government should hold the company accountable.

He said: “It is surprising and shocking. Is it because the rains have started? This affects businesses like hotels, individuals and institutions.”

Escom gets its power from the Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) which generates 95 percent of the power in the national grid.

For several years now, the power supplier has been a victim of vandalism of its equipment including transformers and power lines which has affected several areas across the country.

In April 2023, Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola declared an end of the loadshedding that the country has been experiencing.

He told journalists at a press conference that three machines at Kapichira Hydro-Electric Power Station in Chikwawa had been restored after the plant was destroyed by Cyclone Ana in January 2022. The plant restored 129 megawatts into the national grid.

Since the restoration, the blackouts have significantly reduced.