EGENCO : Revolutionising Malawi’s Energy Sector
EGENCO is working towards a bright future in sustainable power supply. We speak to William Liabunya, CEO, who tells us more about the landscape of energy production for the nation.
EGENCO
Malawi Reenergised Formed out of an amend to the Electricity Act in 2016, EGENCO represents a paradigm shift in the country’s electricity sector, a move which is facilitating welcome development and investment Writer: Tom Wadlow | Project Manager: Ben Weaver Malawi has been lagging behind in power generation and access for a long time, and I was motivated by the prospect that I could be central to future electricity development. “I am excited to see the sustainability of our generation and to help increase capacity in the country. There is much more that we can do as a nation to ensure that we are adequately supplied with power.” For William Liabunya, becoming CEO of EGENCO was an opportunity to fulfil a personal ambition and revolutionise Malawi’s energy sector for the benefit of its people. A mining engineer in the Ministry of Energy and Mining for six years, he moved to ESCOM, the state-owned utility which once monopolised the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in Malawi before a landmark amendment to the Electricity Act unbundled the sector. “The current state of the energy sector in Malawi is both exciting and challenging at the same time,” Liabunya adds. “It is exciting because the government has opened up the power market so that independent power producers (IPPs) can generate power and sell to ESCOM, which is now responsible for just transmission and distribution.” EGENCO, while still government-owned, is one of these new entities able to sell power to the grid. Formed in 2016 as a separation from ESCOM, the company is embarking on a 15-year strategic…
