Govt working towards stopping blackouts next year

The Malawi Government  has assured people in the country that it is doing everything it can to make sure that people do not worry about electricity in the coming year.

This is coming at a time when the country is facing a great challenge of electricity due to lack of enough generation capacity.

Minister of natural resources, energy and mining Bright Msaka said in the year 2016, the country has had challenges in terms of electricity as the country only produced power through hydro.

”We have had great challenges in the provision of electricity in the country because we lack the capacity to generate more electricity as we rely on water,” said Msaka.

He added that relying on hydro power is inadequate to produce more electricity as the country only produces 351 mega watts of power from water which cannot carter for all users in the country.

Msaka said that other countries like Zambia have a small population but have 2000 mega watts which is better than Malawi.

According to Msaka the lake levels this year were very low which made it hard for the provision of the required electricity and because of this the country had been experiencing a worse load shedding.

He further said that the year 2016 is the last for Malawi to be facing electricity problems as in the next year the county will produce more power from various sources such as solar, geo thermo and coal.

Msaka also said that as a country Malawi must diversify the energy sources so that the country is not crippled by electricity problems.