Malawi blackouts to be halved by December, says energy minister

Malawians have spent months planning their lives around the power cut timetable. Now there is a date to hold onto. Energy Minister Jean Mathanga says loadshedding will be halved by December, and she has the fixes lined up.

Mathanga pinned her hopes on two things: repairs at the Nkula hydropower station and 50 megawatts of imported power from Mozambique.

“The restoration of these EGENCO power plants will help us to reduce loadshedding by half,” she said.

The maths is blunt.

The grid is 42MW short, because one machine is down and others are running tired on worn-out parts.

Nkula B unit 6, which lost 20MW, is being finalised. Spare parts for Nkula A are due in November, with work to recover 11MW set to wrap up by December.

The Mozambique interconnector was technically commissioned in August 2026, but it is still waiting on commercial arrangements.

Once it is running, Mathanga says, factories will get power they can rely on, which means fewer stoppages and better productivity.

Quick fixes

In the short term, a net-metering framework will let producers of up to 500kW feed spare power into the grid. Thirty-four have been identified and will add 3.88MW.

Egenco also plans a 2.5MW battery storage system at the Salima Nanjoka solar plant, and diesel backup generators will keep running at peak times.

The bigger picture

Further out, Escom will upgrade 350 transformers under the ASCENT project, and the Mpatamanga Hydro Power Project is meant to add 358MW by 2032.

Studies to upgrade the Lakeshore line and build a new northern line via Kasungu are complete.

Whose fault is it?

Mathanga admitted the rot predates this government.

“It has come to our realisation that in the past five years Escom and Egenco had not been carrying out enough routine preventive maintenance for the system equipment,” she said.

Both utilities have now been told to make maintenance a priority.

Demand is also climbing fast. More than 190,000 customers were connected to the grid by December 2025.

“Frequent power cuts are restricting industries to reach their optimum production levels,” Mathanga said, adding that “we will continue to work on immediate solutions and long term targets.”

For households and businesses counting the cost of every blackout, the proof will come when the lights stay on.

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