Blackout “fades” as Egenco restores power generation at Kapichira

The problem persistent blackouts have to be of the past as Electricity Generation Company (Malawi) Limited (EGENCO) has announced that Kapichira power station has been fully restored.

The Electricity Generation Company announced the development on Wednesday saying that they have finished the rehabilitation of the Hydro-power Station and the fourth tab has been switched on.

Kapichira has been without working for almost 13 months until April when the company announced that they had restored three machines.

EGENCO Chief Executive Officer, William Liabunya said, “When the first machine came back online yesterday, people here at Kapichira and across the whole EGENCO were filled with joy – we danced, ululated and others even shed tears. We couldn’t contain it, having delivered what Malawians have been expecting for a long time.”

Almost a month down the line, the fourth machine has been added to the grid meaning that Company is now generating a total of 129.6 Megawatts (MW) which is about 23% of the country’s power capacity.

Following the restoration of Kapichira, Liabunya said elsewhere that the power scarcity problems that the country has been experiencing will now be a thing of the past.

“Now that we are generating sufficient power, the country will forget about load shedding.

“We are very happy to bring back on line the final machine,” he said.

Although Kapichira Power Station has been out for more than a year, it has taken EGENCO three months to bring back power generation as actual restoration works started in December 2022. So far, rehabilitation works at the Station has costed the Company ten billion Malawi Kwacha.

Malawi was affected by a tropical storm, Cyclone Ana, which hit most parts of the Southern Region that resulted from a heavy downpour that lasted for about three days around January 24, 2022.

This caused a lot of damage to infrastructure and the environment including peoples’ homes, crop fields and road network.

The Cyclone also affected hydro-power generation facilities of Kapichira Station belonging to Electricity Generation Company (Malawi) Limited that resulted in overtopping of the river training dike and fuse plug, erosion of the main dam slopes and damage to steel structures on the spillway bridge of the station.

Apart from the permanent structures, the storm/floods also washed away heavy machinery on the dike and water vessels from where they were docked. Such being the case, Kapichira Power Station could no longer generate power amounting to 129.6MW, reducing EGENCO’s power generation capacity by 32%, and consequently reducing the power available to the national grid.