Full electricity supply to be restored in March – Egenco

Electricity Generation Company (Egenco), now faced with a 121.2 megawatts deficit, says the country should expect full power generation by the end of March this year (2020) as it is still working on faulty machines at Kapichira Power Station.

According to a statement, Egenco said   three out of the four power generation machines at Kapichira Hydro Power Station in Chikwawa—each with a 32.4MW capacity—and 12 generators of two megawatts each are not working..

“Our engineers and technicians are working tirelessly to resolve the faults. One machine is expected to be back online by Wednesday (February, 26) to bring back 32MW into the system.

“The remaining two machines are expected back online by mid-March and end March, 2020 because we are waiting for spare parts which were sent for in Europe and South Africa,” reads the statement issued by Egenco spokesperson Moses Gwaza.

The development has negatively affected Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) which has since started implementing a four-and-half hours emergency load shedding effective Monday.

Escom has divided its customers into three groups—A, B and C. The load shedding hours are split from 8am to 12:30pm, 11:30am to 4pm and 3pm to 7:30pm.

Egenco said the machines at Mapanga have also developed problems of power flashover and failure of machine synchronisation to Escom grid.

“Our team is also working to resolve these problems and the expectation is that four machines will be available by Friday, 28 February. The remaining will be available by the first week of March.

“Meanwhile, our eight of the ten generators at Kanengo are running to supplement the hydropower generation capacity and supplying to Escom grid,” said the statement.

In its notice to the public, Escomsaid the load shedding is due to their major supplier, Egenco still working on most of its machines at Kapichira Power Station and diesel generators at Mapanga and Kanengo.

“As such, the system cannot satisfy the whole demand resulting into the power rationing,” said ESCOM.

Meanwhile, Egenco has assured the public that every effort is being made to ensure the machines are back online as soon as possible.

Egenco generates most of its power through hydro with 136MW from Nkula Hydro Power Station (A and B), 102MW from Tedzani (I, II and III), Kapichira 129.6MW and Wovwe 4.5MW. Diesel generators have the capacity of 52.85MW.

Escom has set a 2022 target to meet electricity demand largely from the power interconnection deal with Mozambique currently being worked out. In December 2019, demand for electricity during peak hours stood at 303.1MW.

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