The country should brace for more blackouts in the next four days as Electricity Generation Company (EGENCO) has announced plans to shutdown Nkula B from Thursday December 15th to 19th December 19th 2022 for repairs.
In press statement dated 13th December 2022, EGENCO says the shutdown is necessary in order to allow for repairs of a damaged bypass pipe on unit flange mounting to the penstock.
One of intakes at EGENCO
The statement adds that following the exercise, 100 Mega Watts will not be available on the national grid.
“The repair works will require complete shutdown of Nkula B Power Station and dewatering of the tunnel and penstocks to facilitate safe working environment for the maintenance team.
“Nkula B has one tunnel which supplies water to five machines. Since the failure on the bypass valve is on the high pressure side, it would require that the tunnel be dewatered to avoid flooding of the station,” says the release.
“As such all five machines will be shutdown to facilitate for the dewatering and repairs.”
EGENCO says the works are necessary to cure the leakage before further damage occurs to the machines as well as mitigate the risk of flooding the powerhouse.
“EGENCO will have all available diesel generators during outage of Nkula B to supplement the available hydro capacity,” adds the statement.
Malawi is currently experiencing power blackouts due to the shutdown of Kapichira Hydro Power Station which was damaged by natural disasters last year and efforts to bring it back to life are currently underway.
