Airport Development Limited’s to expand its solar farm to feed into national power grid

The solar farm at Kamuzu International Airport

* This has come at a time when the country is still facing difficulties in power supply

* A lot of areas across the country are experiencing more blackouts due to load shedding of about 4-6 hours per day

By Ivy Kapaswiche, MANA

Airport Development Limited (ADL) says it is finalising all processes to expand its solar farm project at Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) to contribute more onto the national power supply.

This has come at a time when the country is still facing difficulties in power supply when a lot of areas across the country are experiencing more blackouts due to load shedding of about 4-6 hours per day.

In an interview with Malawi News Agency (MANA) on Thursday in Lilongwe, ADL’s Engineering Manager, Sunganani Dzinkambani said the idea was to increase capacity to make the solar farm sustainable as well as more power secure because this project was not only for the Airport but the country at large.

“This has vastly helped us economically in terms of reduction in our ESCOM bills, and  it’s a part of motivation for us to have an expanded facility which adds more capacity to what we make here at the Airport in terms of power supply,’’ he said, adding that their target was to reach 5 megawatts in contributing to the country’s power grid by 2024.

“In our strategic plan, we want to reach our target but we will obviously move in phases in order to achieve that and we are looking at beyond 2024.

“We have a follow up project with Japanese government, which is to habilitate this facility — so after this we intend to see how we can expand to add more capacity to the grid quiet likely even feature proof or modernise it.”

An energy expert, Grain Malunga said this was a positive way to ensure the country has a greater supply of energy from a range of renewable sources.

“This is a way to go because through this, it is a well-known fact that the company will generate revenue in reduction of bills as well as getting something from the project that will help the company to sustain their needs,’’ he said.

Malunga noted that the ADL solar farm project expansion is important when it comes to renewable energy since it would mitigate climate change.

“Solar farms harness energy from the sun to create clean and renewable electrical energy, unlike fossil fuels such as coal.

“Generating electricity from renewable sources like solar power, creates no emissions that are harmful to human health and the environment as well reduce global warming hence the need to expand this facility to add more power,’’ he said.

Early this month, President Lazarus Chakwera inaugurated the Golomoti Solar Power Plant in Dedza District, which added 20 megawatts to the national grid on top of the 60MW which he also launched at Nanjoka in Salima in November 2021 — which is towards government’s goal of having 1,000 megawatts power to the grid by 2025.

At the Golomoti plant launch, Minister of Energy, Ibrahim Matola assured the nation that more power generation would be added to the grid to ramp up the targeted 1,000MW as guided by Chakwera.

The Golomoti project was built by private investor, JCM Power — which was awarded two projects following the first competitive tender launched by the Government using the Independent Power Producers (IPP) framework.

He added that since the Tender for Solar was processed in 2019, his Ministry has had a lot of enquiries in unsolicited way for projects in the power market, saying a “number of IPPs are currently developing their projects but it is important that we urge them to expedite the process”.

President Chakwera also assured the nation that his government has secured a US$60 million loan from World Bank for the restoration of Kapichira Hydro Power Station, which which was damaged by Cyclone Ana in January.

The restoration of Kapichira aligns to the need to prioritise energy production as an enablers for the industrialisation as enshrined in the MW2063 vision.—Additional reporting by Duncan Mlanjira, Maravi Express