By Andrew Magombo
Lilongwe, June 24: Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) has put on hold Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with Independent Power Producers (IPPs) pending review following revelations of suspicious activities by some applicants.
ESCOM Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Kamkwamba Kumwenda made the remarks in Lilongwe on Saturday at a joint press briefing with the Ministry of Energy and Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA) where they shared key highlights in the energy sector.
The PPAs development follows the dissolution of Power Market Limited (PML) which has seen ESCOM retaining the single buyer license in the power distribution market.
Kumwenda said they noticed that some applications were not adding up as initial clients are not the ones coming forth to roll out implementation hence raising questions of miscellaneous third party agreements to other investors.
“We have written all IPPs including those already with PPAs informing them that we want to know the owners, their previous projects, technical proposals, location and checking their tariffs if they are in interest of Malawians” he said.
Kamkwamba added that about 19 agreements out of the many in review are dated on the eve of the 2019 Tripartite elections but refused to be drawn to comment whether political power was at play.
The ESCOM CEO added that apart from due diligence, they are also looking at financial and technical models to balance the national power grid with more hydro and thermal electricity and not solar energy which is being advanced by many applicants.
Secretary for Energy, Engineer Alfonso Chikuni said almost all functions which were handled by PML are now in the hands of ESCOM including interface with IPPs and PPA arrangements.
Chikuni added that, currently, the demand for electricity is at 12 percent of the population and Government is working on reaching up to 50 percent of the population by 2030 with many projects in the pipeline including the Malawi-Mozambique interconnector project which will add 120 megawatts to the national grid.
