{"id":74482,"date":"2019-02-15T10:59:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T08:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=74482"},"modified":"2019-02-15T10:59:25","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T08:59:25","slug":"firm-to-add-21mw-to-national-power-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/02\/15\/firm-to-add-21mw-to-national-power-grid\/","title":{"rendered":"Firm to add 21mw to national power grid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By William Kumwembe: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) Thursday signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Phanes Energy Limited that could add 21 megawatts (mw) to the national power grid by July 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The pact would see the Dubai-based firm putting up a solar powered electricity generation plant in Nkhotakota District.<\/p>\n<p>The solar plant would be mounted at a 60-hectare piece of land currently under development in the district.<\/p>\n<p>The generated power would fit into the national power grid through power infrastructure built under the $350.7 million (about K257 billion) energy compact through the Millennium Challenge Corporation.<\/p>\n<p>The infrastructure has helped to modernise electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking after signing the agreement, Escom Chief Executive Officer, Alexion Chiwaya, said the move is a significant step on the path to getting sustainable energy mix.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cWe are on the right track to ensure that we achieve our goal of dealing away with power outages,\u201d<\/em> Chiwaya said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He said, to date, Escom has signed PPAs with a number of IPPs and some have started selling power.<\/p>\n<p>Phanse Group Head of Project Development, Alessandro Ortu, said the firm targets July 2019 to start supplying power to the national grid.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe plan is to clear the site and prepare for construction. We target to start supplying electricity in four or five months,\u201d<\/em> Ortu said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Malawi has been grappling with persistent power supply challenges because of reduced water levels in Shire River, the main source of hydro power generation.<\/p>\n<p>Electricity generation capacity by State-owned Electricity Generation Company currently hovers between 230mw and 250mw which is below aggregate national demand.<\/p>\n<p>Of this, 71mw is produced from government-hired diesel-powered generators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By William Kumwembe: Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) Thursday signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Phanes Energy Limited that could add 21 megawatts (mw) to the national power grid by July 2019. The pact would see the Dubai-based firm putting up a solar powered electricity generation plant in Nkhotakota District. The solar plant [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74486,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74482\/revisions\/74486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}