Blackouts return: ESCOM says heavy rains to blame

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The electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) says Malawians should expect power cuts following heavy rains experienced in the Southern Region this week.

ESCOM says the rains have deposited trash at its power station and the trash had blocked intake screens at Nkula and Kapichira Power Stations leading to a reduction in power generation.

Trash at Nkula leading to power cuts

According to a statement ESCOM released together with Electricity Generation Company (EGENCO) yesterday, they were recently generating 326.5MW but the trash has resulted in a loss of about 165MW of hydro generation capacity.

Currently, EGENCO can only generate 161MW from its hydropower stations which fails to meet the national demand of 276MW.

“To mitigate and balance between current electricity demand and available power supply, ESCOM has managed to supply only 176MW to its customers using power from the available hydro generation from EGENCO and diesel Generation machines from AGREKKO.

“ESCOM has subsequently implemented emergency load shedding in several areas across the country,” the statement says.

Meanwhile, EGENCO has started clearing the trash at the power stations and ESCOM hopes generation will resume as soon as the exercise is completed.

From 2014 to 2018, Malawians experienced power cuts which at times lasted 18 hours a day. ESCOM blamed low water levels in the Shire River as the main reason for the blackouts.

 

During the current rainy season, Malawi has received consistent rains and normal power supply resumed in December last year.

 

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One Comment

  1. this is somehow stupid to me….year in year out do they not expect that rains will come? why can’t they come up with a mechanism of avoiding all this even before it starts? ?

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