Electricity Generation Company (EGENCO) says there has not been enough rains for the company to generate enough power.
EGENCO public relations officer Moses Gwaza told Malawi24 that the water level in Lake Malawi is still not at the required point.
“Currently, we only have 120 Cubic Meters per Second (cumecs) against a required 260 cumecs for us to operate at maximum level. We are therefore not running all the available machines,” Gwaza told Malawi24.
He however said people should expect improved power generation because they are continuing to install diesel generators to mitigate the impact of the power shortfalls from the hydropower stations.
The publicist further added that this year Malawians will not experience a similar situation to last year when people had blackouts for over 24 hours whereas other areas were going without power to up to two days.
“We have lined up a number of projects as mentioned earlier that will greatly improve our production capacity. We expect improved service delivery as compared to last year. We are looking at a possibility of having no blackout at all in the nearest future,” he added.
According to the publicist, EGENCO has installed 30 megawatts of diesel generators at Mapanga in Blantyre.
However, other reports show that the generators have been dumped as it is reported that they consume a lot of fuel.
Meanwhile, a 20MW diesel generator is also being installed at Kanengo in Lilongwe and 10MW generator in Mzuzu. These will be ready by end June this year.
Furthermore, 24MW will be brought back and 12MW of power will be added to the national grid come end of August following the rehabilitation, modernization and upgrading of Malawi’s main power production station Nkula A where a new generator has been installed.
Two more generators will also be installed at the station as part of the modernization work of Nkula A, under the $350.7 million Malawi Power Compact, courtesy of the United States of America, acting through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).
