Malawi in electricty crisis due to excessive debris at power stations
Malawi experienced a 24-hour power black-out from Thursday, electricity came back for less than three hours on Saturday before going off again due to heavy rains and flooding.
This has crippled both the social and economic activities of ordinary Malawians.
Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) was forced to shut its Nkula and Kapichira Power Stations making Egenco lose 270 megawatts (MW) of hydro generation capacity against the available capacity of 320MW.
Egenco senior public relations officer Moses Gwaza said in a statement, the closure of its major hydro power stations was a preventive measure against damage to the equipment due to flooding and excessive debris at the power stations.
“This has resulted in a loss of about 165MW of hydro generation capacity out of the recently available 326.45MW. The available hydropower generation capacity has reduced to 161MW, which include 4.5MW from Wovwe power station. This is against the national demand of 276MW as of this morning,” he said.
“Currently, works to clear the debris are underway at the respective power stations so that once the water level situation has improved generation should resume,” Gwaza added..
The statement said to mitigate and balance between current electricity demand and the available power supply, Escom has managed to supply only 176MW to its customers using power from available hydro generation from Egenco and diesel generation.
On his part, Electricity Supply Commission of Malawi (Escom) public relations manager Innocent Chitosi said during the period they prioritised supply of power to essential services like hospitals.
Escom has subsequently implemented emergency load shedding exercise in several areas across the country.
The statement said works to clear the trash are underway at the respective stations and generation will resume as soon as clearing of the clogged screens is completed.
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In the rainy season, there are frequent blackouts because of too much debris in the Shire river. In the dry season, there are frequent blackouts because of low levels of water. In the cold season, there are frequent blackouts because of monkeys tampering with high-voltage cables when they are trying to illegally connect electricity for their heaters ( remember that episode during UDF era? )
Ha ha ha ha ha! Let’s just GET RID of seasons! Looks like every season brings its own woes!
In Venezuela, we’re just hearing that there was a 24-hour blackout – the longest in that country’s living history ! Fancy that! Everybody was surprised that there was such a blackout, and yet Venezuela is in a more dire political, economic and social quagmire than Malawi. Do you people in Venezuela know that here in peaceful Malawi, 24-hour electricity blackouts are a normal occurrence? Ha ha ha ha ha! Mr Nicholas Maduro come to Malawi and teach us how to manage our electricity even in the face of economic mismanagement. One 24-hour blackout in a country’s living history is quite… Read more »
Ma geneleta alikut
Posted picture not relevant to the story. Bad reporting. mediocrity thoo. Simungapite kukajambula zomwe zachitikazo????
Unfortunately the debris (and trash) problem is real and this will continue, regardless of the competence of engineers, as long as environmental degradation, particularly wanton cutting down of trees and cultivation along river banks, continues. By all means blast APM but this should be for his failure to develop the electricity industry by not adding to electricity generation for the past 20 years. In addition, ESCOM has become Mafias cash cow to the extent that, except for the very few staff connected to thieves, the spirit to work has completely gone. For most, May 2019 offers hope of some sane… Read more »
Pay this Escom/ Engco managers according to MW they produce or sell and you will see the change!
But thi conglomerate of long serving parastatals managers and their government friends mess us up big times! Unfortunately it is the same on the others, like waterboards, Admarc, MERA, MACRA , ROAD FUND….
Who will be there to clean the swamp?
This nosense of debris this and that is a sign of incompetence and inept leadership at the hghest level. The nation is losing a lot in the name of this usual debris song. One wonders the kind of engineers and managers employed at ESCOM and Egenco. The president has been warned on many occasions the evils of corruption and nepotism. These are the fruits. DPP should definately go for failing this country. We can not just go on the way it is. Stupid president Mtharika, stupid government. Clueless and rubbish government ever.
MALAWI ELECTRICITY PROBLEM IS DUE TO ILLITRATE PEOPLE RUNNING BUSNESS AFFAIRS AT ESCOM…..WHO ARE BUSY STEALING …AND HAVE NO PLANS FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
Good at funding the stupid dpp and can’t put measures in case of low levels or debris…..
Blackouts in the 21st century? That’s what you get when you have a country full of THICK people.