Electricity Generation Company (EGENCO) says it has a team “working 24/7” to make sure that blackouts end in Malawi by December 23 this year.
EGENCO has also announced that it has instituted investigations into the nationwide blackouts that occurred last weekend.
Director of Planning and Development at EGENCO Labren Sondhi said this yesterday when a team from EGENCO appeared before the Joint committee on Natural Resources Committee, Public Accounts Committee, Trade Committee and Legal affairs Committee.
Sondhi said the company is banking on the restoration of power at the 130 Megawatt Kapichira Power Station which was damaged by floods in January this year.
The EGENCO official noted that months before the damage, the company was generating sufficient power and there were no blackouts apart from those caused by faults.
He added that after the damage, EGENCO had no other option but to institute a load shedding programme as it works on restoring power at the power plant after securing K60 billion loan from World Bank.
“Be assured that we have a team that is working 24/7 to make sure that power generation is restored by 23rd December this year,” said Sondhi.
The Kapichira shutdown led to blackouts lasting at about 7-hours per day but on some days there are nationwide blackouts and last weekend the blackouts intensified with some areas experiencing 14 hours of power outage per day.
Sondhi explained that 60 Megawatts of solar electricity generated at Golomoti is sometimes lost at once due to cloud cover and is not compensated by hydropower, leading to system shutdown and nationwide blackouts.
He, however, failed to provide an explanation for last weekend’s nationwide blackouts.
“There is a team that is investigating the causes and once we finish the inquiry we will come up with answers,” said Sondhi.
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