Energy Policy as a Tool for Promoting Power System Resilience: Malawi’s Challenges and Potential Solutions

Abstract

AbstractA constant production and delivery of electricity is crucial to the functioning of the society. Power systems, however, suffer from either physical, institutional or community level challenges under climate change. Specifically, Malawi is exposed to both climatic and geologic hazards. One of the guiding principles of the needs assessment and recovery strategy is to move from response to long term resilience. The national energy policy (NEP) is considered as one of the drivers of long-term power system resilience (PSR). Understanding the status of NEP is critical in coming up with long term resilience solutions because the qualitative evaluation in this case considers information about risks, the perceived severity of risks and possible impacts of shocks. Although prior studies contributed significantly to the resilience of electricity systems, none of those studies explored the possibility of the NEP being a critical key in promoting the resilience of the electricity sector to extreme weather events. This novel study, therefore, assessed the capacity of the NEP to promote infrastructure and institutional PSR. It also identified challenges regarding the capability of the policy to support PSR. Finally, the study suggested key policy solutions to the identified challenges. Content and thematic analysis were used to analyse the status of energy policy. While the capacity of the policy to promote infrastructural resilience was assessed by evaluating the level of technical policy implementations and status of electricity supply, institutional resilience’s capacity was determined through legal and capacity building policy implementations. Notably, the NEP fails to support PSR. Resilience policies, energy policy financing, energy policy management, coordination with key stakeholders, politics, energy data and capacity of the Ministry of energy are critical issues.