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).
CESET presents at the American Solar Energy Society Conference
19th August, 2025
Amare Assefa, a CESET project member from Addis Ababa University, presented a research poster titled “Reliability Analysis of a Micro-Hydro-Based Microgrid Due to the Integration of a Solar PV System: The Case of Chipopoma Microgrid, Malawi” at the American Solar Energy Society Conference, hosted by the University of Colorado Boulder from August 4–6, 2025.
The study examines the key challenges faced by the Chipopoma Power Minigrid, located in Livingstonia, a small town in the Rumphi District in northern Malawi. At present, the minigrid operates on a scheduled basis with limited daily hours in order to minimize electromechanical failures in the micro-hydropower system.
To overcome this challenge, the research proposes integrating a 50 kW photovoltaic (PV) plant with the existing 53 kVA micro-hydropower system. This hybrid approach significantly enhances system reliability while reducing the cost of electricity ($/kWh) for the Machewe community. Using Expected Energy Not Supplied (EENS) as the primary reliability metric, the results show a remarkable improvement: the EENS value decreases from 24.822% to 0.01%, demonstrating a substantial enhancement in the reliability of electricity supply for the Machewe community.
