Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) says its system shut down this morning resulting in loss of power countrywide.
In a statement this afternoon, ESCOM has said that it is yet to establish the cause of the system shutdown which occurred just after 11AM.
Before the system shutdown, ESCOM was already experiencing a sharp drop in solar production that could not be compensated by base load generation to keep the system stable.
“Efforts are being made to restore power supply at the earliest possible time,” ESCOM has said in its statement.
For the past weeks, Malawi has been experiencing power outages lasting at least four hours a day and on some day extending to 10 hours.
How can ESCOM possibly survive? Problem is that any cash goes in personal pockets so capacity and grid expansion are crippled. This means less revenue. It’s great for off grid solar, but I predict in 5 years escom will either be obsolete or completely propped up by the tax payer.