IMF hails efforts to improve power supply
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has commended government for its efforts to tack electricity production and supply challenges.
In an interview on Sunday, IMF resident representative Jack Ree said while there are a number of power projects lined up in the next three to five years, power shortages are a concern to businesses and households.
“They [power outages] add costs to business and discourage investment. Fortunately, there are a good array of power projects lined up for the next three to five years which can potentially increase the country’s power capacity.
“The government is rightly taking the issue seriously and Malawi can tap into new innovative sources of finance for power projects such as private public partnership.
In his presentation on the power supply situation from July to December 2017 last week, Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom)
system operations manager, Patrick Kadewa, to balance the supply and demand of power, the power supplier is carrying out load shedding to safeguard the system from total shut down.
“To this effect, Escom is continuously reviewing the load shedding program and engaging the industry on best options fitting production to ensure equity of supply,” he said.
According to Kadewa, Escom has installed capacity of 365 megawatts (MW) of electricity, available capacity of 339MW, 249MW electricity demand and a shortfall after mitigation of 90MW while the shortfall before mitigation is at 126.2MW.
Among others, some of Escom’s mitigation measures include cross border connection with Mozambique, procurement of 70MW of solar, demand side management through light emiting diode (LED) bulbs, hiring 78MW emergency generation and power factor correction
In the 2017/18 National Budget, Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe said the policy of government going forward will be to ensure there is adequate power for industries, agro processing, mining, irrigation, information technology, and all sectors that will be the main drivers of the economy.
He said government will also put in place tax policies and incentives to achieve two key objectives, namely to ensure that Malawi is an attractive destination for private investment in the power sector and ensuring that electricity is affordable especially to rural communities.
Last year, Escom was split into two entities, Escom—the residual Escom and Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) —a generation Company as part of the power sector reforms to improve generation and distribution infrastructure.
The power sector reforms, a component of the $350.1 million about K242 billion) United States of America (USA) government–funded Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) energy compact, seeks to improve generation and distribution infrastructure.
This year, the energy sector has been allocated K12.7 billion in the2017/18 budget. n
