Malawi
Malawi is one of the least electrified countries in the world. Only 18% of Malawi’s 18.14 million inhabitants have access to electricity (11.4% provided by the grid network; 6.6% provided through off-grid energy solutions).
Watch the Malawi CES presentations on YouTube
12th July, 2022
We heard from the following projects – click on the links to watch on the YouTube CESET playlist:
- Mulanje Electricity Generation Agency: Bondo Hydro Mini Grid
- Chipopoma Manchewe Falls: Mini-hydro grid
- CARD Malawi/Practical Action Malawi: Nyamvuwu Mini grid
- Community energy Malawi: Sitolo Solar PV Minigrid
The presentations gave an overview of the system; how they supported agriculture, other ways of income generation and socio-economic development of rural communities; how many household/customers they provided for; connection fees and tariffs and the need for onsite technical expertise.
This was followed by a Q/A session that explored the role of the community in the CES projects, the challenges with the tariff, and the provocation that community energy projects are unsustainable. Questions included:
- What strategies did they use for community involvement engagement?
- Was there a difference between community involvement and empowering?
- How did people from the villages apply for connection?
- Given the load issues, how did the CES managers negotiate the process of customers connecting at certain times and did the customers expect i.e. what service did they expect?
- In relation to community energy resilience supply and issues around supply chains and extreme events like COVID and cyclones, what were the challenges CES managers faced?
- Could CES systems enhance community resilience and did people have a preference to being connected to the grid or a CES?
