Malawi to negotiate power deals at energy conference
Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) and Electricity Generating Company (Egenco) have said they will use the 54th Southern Africa Power Pool (Sapp) international conference to learn and negotiate power trading deals with willing nations.
The conference, which starts today until Thursday in Lilongwe, will tackle issues of adequacy, reliability and trading of power in the region in keeping with developments in the Africa region and globally.
Escom public relations manager Innocent Chitosi said in an interview yesterday Malawi plans to be exporting power to neighbouring countries, hence, the conference offers an opportunity for the country to learn and negotiate power trading deals.
He said: “Malawi will also use the opportunity to discuss with South African utility supplier Eskom officials on a possible 150 Megawatts [MW] electricity import deal through the Sapp power interconnection facility.
“The Sapp encourages trading of power among member States. That’s the area we will benefit a lot from.”
The conference comes as Malawi is working on implementing the Interconnector Power Project (IPP) with Mozambique.
Chitosi said the IPP implementation is on course as financing was already secured and procurement of the contractor for construction of power lines is at an advanced stage.
In the initial phase of the interconnector, Malawi will tap 50MW from Mozambique by 2023.
On his part, Egenco senior public relations manager Moses Gwaza said the power generator aims to generate excess power to sell to other Sapp member States.
He said: “Currently, we have two major flagship projects which include the Kammwambwa Coal Fired Plant where we are doing 300MW and the Mpatamanga Hydropower Plant which will have 350MW.
“If we implement these projects within five years as planned, it means we will have 750MW of power which will be more than double our current capacity which will enable us to sell the excess to Sapp.” Sapp seeks to promote a competitive electricity trading market in Sadc.
