The Malawi government has embarked on a process to engage a consulting firm to undertake a design study for the construction of a hydropower plant at Mpatamanga Falls, on the Shire river, which has the potential to generate 140 MW to 310 MW of electricity.
Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola says the World Bank’s International Development Association will finance the project under the umbrella of Malawi’s Energy Sector Support Project, to which the Bretton Woods institution is making $85-million available for feasibility studies on several potential hydropower sites and identifying alternative energy sources.
The assignment will include an engineering design for the main structures, and when this is available, a full feasibility study report will be produced to facilitate the mobilisation of resources for the development of the project, expected to cost over $300-million.
Mpatamanga is one of the sites identified as having considerable potential for electricity generation by a previous World Bank-financed study, which indicated that Malawi has the potential to generate over 1 000 MW of electricity from several sites on the Shire river and smaller rivers in the country.
Malawi generates up to 94% of its electricity from hydropower plants on the Shire river and a mini hydropower plant at Wovwe, in the north of the country. Meanwhile, the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) has commissioned the Kapichira 2 plant, on the Shire river, adding 64 MW to the country’s installed capacity, which has now reached 336.5 MW.
Escom says the coming on stream of Kapichira 2 will enable the company to connect many customers, including mining projects, which were failing to take off because of power supply constraints. Kapichira 2 is Escom’s eighth power plant.
Matola says the policy of the Malawi government is to commission a new power plant every five years to cater for the rapid increase in the power demand due to population and industrial growth. “We are inviting cooperating partners and investors to partner us in our quest to increase power production. We want investments in all sources of power – be it thermal, solar, wind or hydro.”