A comprehensive Renewable Energy Symposium, organized with support from the University of Strathclyde, the Scottish Government, UNDP Malawi and the Department of Energy, happened at Crossroads Hotel from 19th to 20th August, 2014.
With the development of Malawi’s new Energy Policy and Sustainable Energy for All, the symposium came at a critical time to address the longstanding issues in the provision of modern energy services in Malawi.
Recent results from prominent development programmes are providing timely evidence to support future policy and approach, especially in the area of Community Energy.
This Symposium had two objectives, firstly, to bring together practitioners, policy makers, and academics to consolidate learning over the last 3 years. Secondly, to consider the options for future policy elements and Malawi’s readiness over the next decade including technology choices, maximizing impact, and achieving sustainable energy for all.
Topics of the symposium included
- Establishing the national and international context of Energy Policy in Malawi
- Highlighting the potential contribution of Renewable Energy to Malawi’s energy need
- The Vision and Objectives of policy
- The potential of renewable energy in Malawi
- The insights of other countries
- Community-based renewable energy programmes
- Academic and Industry insights
- The technical challenges of renewable energy development in Malawi
- The community challenges of renewable energy development
- Policy and cross-cutting issues with renewable Energy
The two days full of presentations, question and answer sessions and networking breaks, also provided a valuable opportunity for interaction between key Malawian policy makers and international organizations on renewable energy issues, in addition to enabling the University of Malawi through the Malawi Polytechnic and University of Strathclyde to utilize the lessons learnt from the implementation of the Malawi Renewable Energy Acceleration Programme (MREAP).
It is expected that the discussions at the Symposium will inform decisions on development of the renewable energy industry that need to be taken into consideration in the review of the National Energy Policy that the Ministry is currently undertaking.
A detailed agenda with speakers can be found below.
We will try to share the multiple inspiring presentations here as soon as we get the authority to publish them.