Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) has restored generation of 80 megawatts (MW) of electricity after fixing a fault at its Nkula B Hydro Power Station that took off 100MW ahead of Christmas Day.
The development has since prompted Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) to lift a temporary power rationing schedule it effected on December 21 2020 following the drastic reduction in power generation by Egenco, Escom’s key supplier.
But in a statement Egenco said that from Sunday it made tremendous progress as it had managed to remove and repair the burst pipe.
In an interview on Monday, Egenco spokesperson Moses Gwaza said following the restoration of the machine, which was shutdown to pave the way for repairs, it was now generating an average of between 250 and 300MW.
A statement from Egenco also said four of the five units (machines) of 20MW each were restored to the grid.
Reads the statement: “We are bringing back the machine into the national grid except for the machine which had the burst pipe as we seek to do further repairs in other affected areas.
“At this point, all the four available machines are back to the grid. Therefore, we have 80 megawatts back on the national grid. Work on the remaining one unit [20MW] will continue and will keep you updated.”
In an interview on Monday, Escom public relations manager Innocent Chitosi confirmed that the corporation has lifted the temporary load shedding programme, saying it was now receiving enough power supply from Egenco to meet customer demand.
He said: “We have ended the temporary load shedding programme. We are now getting enough power to supply our customers.”
On December 21, four days before Christmas Day, Escom issued a statement announcing the temporary load shedding programme following the shutdown of Nkula B Hydro Station after the burst pipe on the machine which led to the loss of 100MW.
During a tour to Nkula with Escom officials on Tuesday last week, Minister of Energy Newton Kambala said the maintenance work was expected to be completed within 10 days, from the day of the visit.
Egenco generates over 90 percent of its power through hydro with 136MW from Nkula Hydro Power Station (A and B), 102MW from Tezani (I, II and III), Kapichira 129.6 MW and Wovwe 4.5 MW.
It is Escom’s key supplier of electricity. Escom, on the other hand, also gets 78MW from leased generators managed by Aggreko, an independent power producer whose contract is set to expire on January 21 2021.
Malawi’s high dependence on hydro power and lack of investment in new generation plants has exposed the country to recurrent power supply challenges.
