Malawi govt sorry for countrywide blackout: Strike new electricity deal with Mozambique
The government has officially apologised to the citizens for the countrywide power blackout on Tuesday night.
Malawi’s Energy minister Ibrahim Matola said the power blackout was caused by “technical problem” that supplied power supply across the entire electrified part of the country.
Matola said the government was “deeply sorry “ for the power outage.
Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) said it has established an inquiry to find out what caused the nation-wide black-out .
Meanwhile, Malawi government has confirmed that it has amended the electricity deal with Mozambique to create a “win-win” situation for both countries.
Malawi’s secretary for energy, Winford Masanjala, confirmed that in the new deal both countries can either import or export to each other depending on excess power.
Under the previous deal, Malawi was only allowed to import electricity from Mozambique but not export the same if it had excess power.
Currently Malawi is unable to export power because it has a deficit in its generation capacity. The country’s demand stands at 300 megawatts against production of 200 megawatts.
Both Malawi and Mozambique are members of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), a cooperation of the national electricity companies in Southern Africa under the auspices of SADC.
The members of SAPP have created common power grid between their countries and a common market for electricity in the SADC region.
