Blantyre Water Board in K91 billion solar power plant project

Blantyre Water Board (BWB) has announced plans to embark on a $112 million (about K91 billion) solar project aimed at cutting on production costs.

In a statement, BWB Chief Executive Officer Robert Hanjahanja said the project is aimed at establishing a 50 megawatt solar power plant and will be funded by Exim Bank from India.

“With the rehabilitation and increased equipment capacity realised in our project, the energy demand for our operations has drastically gone up to unsustainable levels,” he said.

Before the implementation of the projects, the board’s maximum daily energy demand was about 12 megawatts, according to Hanjahanja.

Currently, the maximum daily energy demand has gone up to about 26 Megawatts.

“This energy demand increase coupled with high electricity tariffs has resulted in unsustainable energy costs which are not proportional to increase in revenue,” the statement reads.

It further said that, with the construction of new water sources from Mulanje and the proposed new one from Shire River, it is expected that the energy demand will double as about 50 megawatts will be required in order to run all its water supply installations by 2040.

SOURCE: THE TIMES GROUP