Authorities have stressed on the need to fast-track processes of exploring independent power producers as one way of dealing with the country’s longstanding power challenges.

Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola said the continued reliance on water as major source of electricity is putting the country at serious power challenges.

He said: “Most of the electricity we are using is the country is relying on under one rive, the power plants are under Shire River.”

Matola said government is engaging independent power producers who will be generating electricity using both wind and geothermal.

“What happened on 24 January 2022 when we lost the dam and lost about 130 megawatts, it is not good to put all eggs in one basket,” added Matola.

He added that the recent devastating Cyclone which led to the damage of Kapichira Hydro Power Plant is a serious warning to explore other means of producing power.

“Because suppose if the Cyclone Idai of 2019, it affected Tedzani and if we go on like that, suppose it starts at Mkula then it end in downstream Kapichira then the whole country would be blackout.

The Independent Power Producers cannot only be in renewable energy, the green energy but we are also going into wind and geothermal,” feared Matola.

Kapichira Hydro Power Plant was adding 129.6 megawatts of power to the national grid.