United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has handed over Mulanje Electricity Generation Agency mini-grid to Malawi Government.

Speaking during the handover on Friday in the district, UNDP resident representative Shigeki Komatsubara said the mini grid is a social enterprise to provide affordable and reliable electricity supply to communities.

He said they plan to construct 50 mini-grids in the country.

“We appreciate the partnership with the government of Malawi through the Ministry of Energy and look forward to developing more mini-grids by 2030,” Komatsubara.

Matola being briefed inside the power generating station

Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola said with the mini-grids, Malawi can fill the 700 megawatts (MW) gap to produce 1 000MW which President Lazarus Chakwera’s wants.

He said Malawi has many resources from which to generate energy.

“We have many rivers to generate hydro-electricity. We also have other resources such as wind, solar and geothermal to generate power,” said Matola.

The project coordinator Arnold Kadziponte from Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust, said the mini-grid, which currently serves over 1 600 customers, will soon be able to produce 6.5MW.

He said “We have partnered with Vilunga Power and our intentions are to increase the generation capacity to 6.5MW. With this, 2.5MW will be used to serve 10 000 customers while 4MW will be given to the national grid,” he said. 

UNDP joined hands with Mulanje Electricity Generation Agency through Increasing Access to Clean and Affordable Decentralised Energy Services in Selected Vulnerable Areas of Malawi Project which ran from 2015 to 2019.

The support from UNDP continued into the successor project of Access to Clean and Renewable Energy [2020—2023].

This support came in monetary form to the tune of $500 000 which provided equipment, materials and technical assistance.

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