Mining & Trade News

The Electricity Generation Company (EGENCO) says it is exploring alternative power sources to supplement power that it currently generates from hydro-plants.

EGENCO CEO William Liabunya said in an interview at the launching ceremony of the Company’s 15 years strategic plan in Blantyre that EGENCO wants to have diverse sources of power in order to do away with load-shedding due to unsteady supply of power as the hydro sources are prone to climate change related problems including diminishing water levels in the Shire River.

Liabunya said: “There are a lot of avenues which EGENCO is exploring to boost electricity generation and one of them is diversification.”

 “We strongly believe it is time to diversify to other sources of power because as you are aware 90 % of the electricity being generated is hydro-electric power.”

“The biggest challenge we have is that each time the water level goes down, electricity generation is affected and in-turn power supply is affected. We, therefore, need to find alternative sources that are sufficient and reliable.”

Board Chairperson for Egenco Lloyd Muhara told Mining & Trade Review at the same function that as stated in its strategic plan, EGENCO will explore and promote the use of clean energy in order to deal with the problem of deforestation due to excessive use of biomass as a source of energy.

“We want to start generating reliable and diversified power by investing in new power plants in a sustainable manner,” he said.

In the plan, EGENCO has set an ambitious target of increasing its installed electricity generation capacity from 367.37 to 1,687.5 MW by 2033 and overcome the country’s electricity woes in 14 years. The strategic plan is for 2018 to 2033.

Meanwhile, the Economic Association of Malawi (ECAMA) has asked the Malawi Government to increase funding to the energy sector starting from the next budget in order for EGENCO and Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) to achieve their plans of ensuring stable and adequate supply of electricity.

ECAMA president, Chikumbutso Kalilombe made the statement during a pre-budget consultation meeting which was organized by the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development in Lilongwe and was presided over by Minister of Finance Joseph Mwanamveka.

Kalilombe said EGENCO’s ambitious plan to increase power generation will only be fully implemented with adequate funding.

“It is high time government invested directly into power production. Even if we do not sort out all woes now, we will have started,” he said.

He also said the government needs to be aggressive in its campaign to attract investors in power generation by speeding up the ongoing policy changes to accommodate independent power producers.

Malawi’s electricity demand is expected to grow to 600 MW in 2018, 950 MW in 2020, and 1,200 MW in 2025.

The energy sector spending as a percentage of GDP remained below one percent between years of 2016/17 and 2018/19, and is projected to average around one percent by 2030.

Though only less than 12% of the Malawi population is connected to the electricity grid, blackouts are the order of the day as Escom conducts a load shedding programme to ration power supply especially in dry season when water levels are low in Lake Malawi and the Shire River.

Various studies have identified lack of reliable power as the main factor hindering investment in major economic sectors including mining and manufacturing.

Egenco, which was born from the unbundling of Escom into two entities in order to enhance efficiency in the power sector, started its operations in 2017.

Since its formation, the Company has been active in carrying out maintenance and expansion of power plants including the Nkula A which has been modernized with funding from US’s Millennium Challenge Corporation.

EGENCO is also constructing Tedzani IV with funding from the Japanese Government and has planned a number of generation projects including the setting up of a coal fired power plant to generate 300MW.

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