The Electricity Generation Company (EGENCO) says it will be carrying maintenance works at Nkula A and B resulting in the unavailability of 135.1 megawatts to the national grid over the long weekend.
This is according to EGENCO press statement dated 10th January, 2024 in which it says the maintenance works which will start this Saturday to Monday 15th January, 2024, are aimed at replacing dislodged Intake screens and inspection of main inlet valve for some machines at the power stations.
EGENCO says the maintenance work will require complete shutdown of both Nkula A and B and lowering of the head-pond level to create safe working environment for the Engineers, Divers, Technicians and Welders during inspection and installation of trash screens at the intake.
“Electricity Generation Company (Malawi) Limited (EGENCO) wishes to notify all stakeholders and the public that there will be an outage of Nkula A and B from 06h00 on Saturday, 13th January 2024 to 17h00 on Monday, 15th January 2024 to replace Nkula B dislodged Intake Screens and inspection of Main Inlet Valve (MIV) for Machine Number 4.
“Furthermore, the work will require dewatering of the tunnel to conduct inspection and repair of MIV on machine number 4. This means 135.1MW will not be available for supply to the national grid during the stated period,” reads part of the statement.
However, the company says there will be power generation at both Tedzani and Kapichira and EGENCO will continue to run all available diesel generators during the outage to supplement the available hydro capacity.
