This paper presents a review of the energy situation in Malawi and discusses renewable energy options that can strengthen Malawi's energy supply and energy security. The paper reviews the availability of renewable energy resources namely solar, wind, biomass, hydro, and geothermal in Malawi; and explores the potential of upscaling and broadening the applications of the existing renewable energy technologies. The paper also analyses challenges facing Malawi's energy sector, and presents a framework for sustainable delivery of renewable energy systems based on political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors (PESTLE). About 89 percent of the Malawi's energy is sourced from traditional biomass mainly fuel wood which has led to fuel wood demand exceeding sustainable wood supply. Only 8 percent of the population in Malawi have access to electricity; however installed capacity of electricity generation is lower than demand which leads to load shedding by the supplier and consequently electricity supply in Malawi is unreliable. Certainly, solar, nontraditional biomass (crop residues and forest residues not burnt on three stone fireplaces, and biogas) and hydro can contribute significantly to Malawi's inadequate and unreliable energy supply. There is also potential for wind and geothermal in the country but further resource mapping is required to comprehensively determine these resources. Although the Malawi Energy Policy lays out steps towards improving the energy supply in the country, unreliable financing mechanisms for large scale energy projects, shortage of trained human resource, lack of coordination among local institutions, unclear regulation enforcement and sometimes political governance impede sustainable delivery of energy projects in Malawi.

The lack of modern electricity supply has been a major impediment to proper functioning of the healthcare centers in the rural areas, contributing to high maternal and child mortality rates in a country. Therefore, this study focuses on how to address the identified problem so that the healthcare centers or clinics in the remote areas can provide timely delivery of medical services for the concerned people. This paper, then, presents the analysis of stand-alone hybrid renewable energy systems for basic healthcare services in the rural areas, where there is no grid energy supply or the supply from the existing grid is erratic and unreliable. One major factor that informs the selection of the hybrid energy system in this study is that it promises high reliability compared to a single energy system. The research presents a statistical analysis of the potential of wind and solar energies for a selected rural locations in Nigeria based on the available long-term hourly and daily meteorological data. It employs an optimal technical and economic design and sizing of hybrid electrical power systems' components such as the wind, PV, battery and inverter systems, using the hybrid optimisation software (HOMER). Results show that Sokoto and Jos sites exist in the high wind potential regions, while the remaining sites are only suitable for small wind applications. Values obtained for global radiation show that all the sites enjoy considerable solar energy potential suitable for varying degree of solar energy applications. PV/wind/diesel/battery hybrid system configuration is considered optimum for rural health center at Iseyin, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Jos and Enugu, while hybrid systems involving PV/diesel/battery is considered ideal for Port-Harcourt, due to the quality of renewable energy potential. Hence, it was concluded that, the abundance of wind and solar resources in the country create an ideal environment for inclusion of renewable energy systems in the design and implementation of standalone power supply systems to improve rural healthcare delivery.

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