Truth be told, Malawi is increasingly becoming an energy-stressed country. At 118000 square kilometres, the country has relatively small land mass. The situation is not helped by the ever-growing population that mostly depend on fuel wood.
The global energypedia site [https://energypedia.info/wiki/Malawi_Energy_Situation] ably details Malawi’s energy situation.
”The National Energy Policy estimates that 93 percent of total energy demand is met by biomass energy. Households consume 84 percent of the total primary energy. A staggering 99 percent of household energy is supplied by biomass,” it reads.
The site says population growth continues to exert significant pressure on the country’s forest resources.
It claims that this leads to forest degradation and deforestation at a rate of 2.6 percent per year. About 87 percent of the population uses firewood while eight percent uses charcoal to satisfy their energy needs.
With the increasing population comes some shrinking economy as the scramble for goods and services becomes enormous. This has resulted in urbanization growth as communities search for greener pastures away from their natural settlement.
Despite the demand, only about 11 percent of the population is connected to the national grid, according to government records. This pushes up electricity tariffs even further.
The energypedia says: ”Electricity and gas are only intermittently available and considered to be too expensive for cooking. Therefore firewood and charcoal are major cooking fuels, even in the urban areas. Most of the charcoal is consumed in urban areas- representing 46% of total demand. Firewood provide over 50% of the urban cooking fuel and nearly 100% in the rural areas.”
All this also exerts pressure on the protected forest reserves and national parks in the sense that charcoal is mostly unsustainable produced from live trees. Not even firewood is unsustainably collected here.
Environmentalists and economists argue that Malawi GDP would be 5.3% higher if unsustainable use of natural resources would be reduced.
”Forest and soil degradation are considered some of the main contributors to these losses. Charcoal will be produces increasingly further away from the cities and households must spend more for their cooking fuel. There is a tenancy to import charcoal from neighboring countries such as Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania, leading to severe negative environmental impacts in these countries,” says environmental journalist Matthews Malata.
Lilongwe Wildlife Trust head of environmental education programme Clement Manjaalera, whose institution trains people in making briquettes as an alternative sources of energy to charcoal, could not agree more.
”Many Malawians rely on wood for energy and not electricity, hence, the continuous felling of trees to produce charcoal or firewood.”
”This is subjected the country to many negative effects of climate change. We thought we could train people on the importance of using briquettes which are made of cheap materials such as used papers,” said Manjaalera.
But can Malawi redeem itself from such an environmental degradation abyss? The answer seems to lie in turning towards renewable energy.
However, this is not as easy as it sounds as it requires some considerable huge investments.
For a start, Malawi requires about $3.5 billion to build the power system and ensure that by 2020, everyone uses affordable, reliable and clean energy in line with Sustainable Development Goals 7 (SDG7).
This is according to the Malawi Sustainable Energy Investment Study which is commissioned by the Department of Energy and funded by United Nations High Office for the Least developed Countries, Landlocked Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States(UNOHRLLS) and Rocky Mountain Institute.
The energy assessment, according to experts, paves way for greater funding towards ensuring sustainable energy by 2030.
The million-dollar question remains: Is Malawi ready to finance such enormous deals? Does it really have a choice?
Development finance and renewable energy finance consultant Violette Santhe believes it is doable owing to their enormous benefits to the country.
In fact, the country’s financial sector is advocating fro the liberalization of the renewable energy sector to make it attractive for investment financing as a way of helping to improve access to clean energy.
Santhe said the success of renewable energy projects depends on methods government adopts and that implements policies on renewable energy and the level of government’s capacity to attract financing.
”The policy recommendations we have derived from barriers to private finance. There is a need for stakeholders like government, development partners and other philanthropists to look at issues that hamper investment into his sector.
”There is also need to provide incentives that can attract financiers, but that can be achieved if government can phase out subsidies on fossil fuels and transfer those subsidies to renewable energy sector.” he says.
According to Santhe, there can be greater interest to finance and invest into renewable energy if government were to work on the concerns.
Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) one backed the idea.
Speaking during the 2019 Malawi Energy Conference in Lilongwe, Mera boss Collins Magalasi indicated that the sector would be interested to help grow by introducing smooth regulations that entice more investment into the renewable energy sector.
Source: The Nation- Energy and Mining Special Pullout_November 24, 2020_Fastani Gunya-Staff Reporter