One of the girls, Temwa Gondwe, a Form 4 student at Bambino Schools in Lilongwe said she learnt a lot through the visit. Mataka said the new technology followed a recent rehabilitation of Nkula A under the Millennium Challenge Cooperation which saw all old machines replaced with new ones, thereby increasing the station’s efficiency and output. He added that at the supply end, the power is also stepped down to low voltages that are suitable for consumption in homes and companies.Īt Nkula A, it was interesting for the girls to appreciate that switching on and off and monitoring of the machines’ performance are all done through computerised systems. This is to take care of lost power as we distribute it over long distances,” said Mataka. “Once the power is generated, it is usually around 11kw from each of the three machines under Nkula A so before releasing for distribution, we step it up to over 100kw using step up transformers. Here the girls appreciated how the water is accumulated in a dam to increase its momentum by a number of mechanisms including gates that regulate water levels in the dam.Īt the intake, workers also remove debris and drain the dam of accumulated silt.įrom the intake point, the girls went to the power stations which are some half kilometre downstream where they went inside the power generating houses to appreciate how the water turn the turbines that later generate power. The girls started their journey of the power station with safety brief this being a high security and safety area before visiting the intake points for both Nkula A and B stations.
Secondary schools participating in this year’s Girls Science Camp on Augtook time away from laboratory and lecture sessions to go on an education tour of Nkula Hydro Power Station in Mwanza.Īt Nkula, dressed in Electricity Generation Company (Egenco) branded T-shirts, the girls were taken through the electricity generation process by Nkula’s Assistant Operations Engineer Justine Mataka.