Malawi has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Re-Thinking Foundation for the 50-megawatt solar farm project between Mzuzu University (Mzuni) and Tauber Solar.
President Lazarus Chakwera witnessed the signing of the MOU in Berlin, Germany.
Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola signed the MoU on behalf of the Malawi Government.
Speaking at the signing ceremony Matola said the MoU will see students doing engineering and electrical at Mzuni doing practical work and exchange of programs.
“The President has been talking about job creation; Malawians are going to be employed, the youth, who are graduates, and those doing engineering and electrical will also be employed to develop the solar power park,” said Matola.
Shareholder and Chief Executive Officer for Tauber Solar Group, Zeno Fleck, said the project is a great business investment for the people of Malawi as it will create employment.
“We will start the project immediately; we made the visibility study, and in the next four weeks, the project will start. It is a huge project which will need about 100 people from the beginning and we are investing about €70 million,” he said.
Mzuzu Vice Chancellor, Professor Wales Singini, said Mzuni has an idea of taking part in the energy sector through the development of its solar farm at Choma, and the signing of the MoU will make that idea into reality.
“Our initial idea was that we should be able to provide a platform for our students to learn practically in terms of how to deal with renewable energy systems, but at the same time, as a university, we should also be able to generate some resources to support our functionality,” said Singing.
He added that the university took the idea seriously by working through all processes, such as the visibility study and all that is required after getting permission from the Minister of Energy.
