Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi Ltd. (ESCOM) is the state-owned power producing company in Malawi

Malawi

The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...

. It is entirely in control of generation, transmission and distribution of electric power in the country. ESCOM represents Malawi in the Southern African Power Pool

Southern African Power Pool

The Southern African Power Pool is a cooperation of the national electricity companies in Southern Africa under the auspecies of the Southern African Development Community . The members of SAPP have created common power grid between their countries and a common market for electricity in the SADC...

. It is not to be confused with its South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n equivalent Eskom

Eskom

Eskom is a South African electricity public utility, established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission by the government of South Africa in terms of the Electricity Act . It was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie . The two acronyms were combined in 1986 and...

.

Nearly 95% of Malawi’s electricity supply is provided by hydropower from a cascaded group of interconnected hydroelectric power plants located on the middle part of Shire River

Shire River

The Shire is a river in Malawi and Mozambique. The river has been known as the Shiré or Chire River. It is the outlet of Lake Malawi and flows into the Zambezi. Its length is 402 km; including Lake Malawi and the Ruhuhu, its headstream, it has a length of about 1200 km...

 and a mini hydro on the Wovwe River, which constitute the interconnected system. Total installed capacity of these hydropower plants is 282.5MW. The hydroelectric schemes on the Shire River are all of run-of the river type. Some thermal power plants serve as stand-by for the interconnected system: a 15 MW Gas Turbine Plant in Blantyre and a 1.1 MW Diesel Power Plant in Mzuzu

Mzuzu

Mzuzu is the capital of Malawi's Northern Region and is the third largest city, by population, in Malawi. The City has 128,432 residents plus 20,000 commuters with about 1.7 million people living around the outskirts of the city...

. Likoma District

Likoma District

Likoma District is an exclave of Malawi situated within Mozambique consisting of two main islands, Likoma and Chizumulu in Lake Malawi . It is a district in the Northern Region of Malawi...

 has two separate isolated systems with a total installed thermal power plants capacity of 1.050MW .

Power generation is however not meeting demand an rolling blackout

Rolling blackout

A rolling blackout, also referred to as load shedding, is an intentionally-engineered electrical power outage where electricity delivery is stopped for non-overlapping periods of time over geographical regions. Rolling blackouts are a last-resort measure used by an electric utility company in order...

s are scheduled routinely.