Malawi has sourced USD60 million (about K61 billion) from World Bank for rehabilitation of the 129.6MW Kapichira Power Station which was damaged earlier this year by Cyclone Ana.
The reconstruction of the dam structure at the power plant is expected to begin next month.
Electricity Generation Company (Malawi) Limited (EGENCO) Chief Executive Officer, William Liabunya, said in a statement yesterday that after lengthy discussions with the World Bank, the Bank has agreed to lend to EGENCO through the Ministry of Finance money for the repairs of the Kapichira dam for both phase 1 and phase 2 works.
“A total of USD60million has been secured which is to cater for the sector’s Emergency Power Restoration Project from cyclone Ana disaster for both EGENCO and ESCOM. This means that reconstruction works will commence immediately after procurement of consultant and contractor is finalized,” said Liabunya.
The project of the plant reconstruction at Kapichira is scheduled to happen in two phases. As per regulatory requirements, EGENCO is undertaking an Environmental and Social Management Plan (ESMP) for Phase 1 works. A consultant has been engaged and is on the ground doing the work. It is expected that this activity will be completed by mid-June 2022.
The preliminary estimates show that it will take about 3 to 6 months to complete the project.
EGENCO is hoping that it will get all the necessary support from all key government institutions in the country so that the company can move with speed in the process to identifying competent and experienced consultants and contractors to do the work required to fix the plant.
The flashfloods earlier this year caused extensive damage to the dam and its appurtenant structures.
Some of the damage that was caused was that the Training Dike and the Fuse Plug (protection section of the dam) for the main dam was completely washed away by the floods resulting in the flow regime of Shire River changing from flowing to the intake but flowing through the dam fuse plug.
“Breach of the fuse plug and extensive damage to the main dam embankment meant no generation could take place at the power station. As a result, 129.6MW (30% of EGENCO’s installed capacity) from the station is not available to the National Grid. This has resulted in the country experiencing long hours of load shedding,” EGENCO said.
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