The Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) is expected to add 20 megawatts (MW) of power to the national grid by the end of April following the arrival of 10 diesel generators.
The generators, each producing 2MW, will be planted at Mapanga in Blantyre.
Egenco Senior Communications Officer, Moses Gwaza, said the generators are Egenco assets and will be used whenever there’s a power shortfall from the hydro power.
He said though the generators will not be running continuously, they will significantly help to address power gaps in the country.
Gwaza assured Malawians that Egenco is doing all it can to avoid a repeat of last year’s situation when Malawi experienced one of the worst power crises.
“We have short-and medium-term power solutions to make sure that the country experiences consistent power supply. We are rehabilitating Nkula A with support from the American Government and we believe that Nkula A will be back on the grid by end August and will add 12MW.
“We are also rehabilitating our machines at Tedzani and we expect an additional 10MW. Apart from that, we are also doing dredging to remove silt which has been giving us problems since last year,” he said, adding that looking at the short- term interventions, this year should be different in terms of power generation.
He also said Lilongwe will also receive five more generators that will produce 10 megawatts in due course.
On the recent blackouts, Gwaza said the low rainfall received in the Southern Region has led to reduced power generation.
“Currently, we are producing 200MW. Also we had a technical problem with one of our generators but that has been fixed and we expect things to get back to normal soon,” Gwaza said.
Egenco has so far installed diesel generators in Mzuzu and Lilongwe, which are producing 6MW and 10MW respectively.