Nkula Power plant
The Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) says domestic users in most parts of the country, will this Sunday 19th February be subjected to 15 hours of blackout as the whole country will only have 130 Megawatts of electricity.
This is according to ESCOM’s Thursday announcement where it said the 15-hour blackout will be as a result of maintenance works at Nkula A and B which the Electricity Generation Company (EGENCO) will be carrying out on the material day.
The electricity supplier indicated that EGENCO will work on the two sites from 6:00am till 5:00pm, thereby subjecting a 15-hour blackout to domestic customers, while industrial feeders will have no power for an average of 17 hours.
“We will implement prolonged load shedding on Sunday, 19th February, 2023, due to a further reduction of power supply. On this day, our major hydro-power supplier, EGENCO, will undertake maintenance works at Nkula A and B power stations from 6:00am to 5:00pm.
“Therefore, we will have only 130MW available to supply essential loads including central referral hospitals and water boards in all the regions. Consequently, all domestic customers will be subjected to an average of 15 hours load shedding and 17 hours for industrial feeders,” leads part of the statement.
In a separate press release, EGENCO said the company will be repairing intake trash screens at Nkula A and B which is necessary to prevent excessive clogging of fine screens and also prevent large objects from entering the machines underwater areas, thereby preventing frequent shutdown of Nkula power station.
EGENCO added that the works will require the complete shutdown of Nkula A and B and the lowering of the head-pond level to create safe environment for the team working on the trash screen reinstatement, thereby losing the station’s 135.1MW hydro capacity to the national grid.
However, the electricity generator said it be running all available diesel generators during the outrage, so as to supplement the available hydro capacity.
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