Electricity generation improves to 200MW

The Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) says power generation capacity has moved upwards from 147 megawatts (MW) to 200 MW.

In a telephone interview on Tusday, Egenco chief executive officer William Liabunya attributed the improvement to the rains that the country is experiencing, most notably in the Southern Region.

But despite the improvement, Liabunya said the status quo may not be sustainable unless the country gets a heavy downpour.

He said: “We have been having some trickles of rain which has improved the flow of the lake levels, but we cannot say it is sustainable for the moment until we have enough rains to improve the levels more then we will have the confidence of a stable generation capacity.”

Liabunya further clarified that a 6MW diesel genset that arrived in the country to be installed at Luwinga in Mzuzu, as part of their solutions to ease the current electricity challenges, will be operational end this month.

Six sites were identified where 50MW gensets are expected to be installed which include Mapanga and Chigumula in Blantyre, Mfundisi Cross in Mulanje, Monkey Bay in Mangochi and Kanengo in Lilongwe.

Faced with mounting pressure, Egenco also had plans to airlift generators from India to speed up the process of generating power from diesel-powered generators.

But Liabunya on Tuesday said they are currently evaluating if it is still worth airlifting the generators as they need close to K4 billion for the exercise.

He said: “A team comprising our engineers will travel to India this week where they will do what we call an Assessment Factory Acceptance Assessment so as to ensure we get the right stuff and that the generators are accepted by our engineers. But right now we are still making evaluations because the price is too exorbitant.”

Speaking when he attended a joint meeting of Egenco and the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) in October, President Peter Mutharika appealed for patience saying government treats electricity as a priority and assured Malawians the problem would be minimised by the end of the year.

However, Liabunya is on record as having told The Nation that the current electricity generation capacity will be improved in March next year.