A review of the adoption of renewable energy technologies by hotels in Malawi
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3051/2025/v36i1a16047Keywords:
tourism, environment, policy, economy, bottlenecks, interventionsAbstract
The hotel sector is a vital component of the tourism industry, as it plays a critical role in the determination of tourism destination competitiveness. However, lack of reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy supply remains a major bottleneck to the development of the hotel sector in Malawi. The adoption of clean and renewable energy sources around the globe is driven by different factors, such as the need to address environmental challenges and reduce energy costs. Usually, less affordable energy supplies increase the cost of service delivery, thus making these hotels less competitive on the global market. The article investigates the opportunities and barriers to the hotel industry's adoption of renewable energy technologies and includes a literature review. The paper shows that renewable energy technologies have multiple applications in a typical Malawian hotel, and these present numerous economic and environmental opportunities. However, the hotel sector is failing to capitalise on the energy policy and regulation improvements taking place in the country, mainly due to a lack of technological awareness by hotel managers. To reverse this, the government needs to adopt policies and regulations that target the hotel sector to increase awareness and adoption of clean and renewable energy technologies.
Downloads
References
Abam, E. N. (2017). Solving the Problem of Waste Management in the Hospitality Industry – A Case Study of Chariot Hotel in Buea, South West Region - Cameroon. Asian Business Research, 2(3), 75. https://doi.org/10.20849/abr.v2i3.251.
Allan, A. (2024). Problems and Possible Solutions to Municipal Solid Waste Management in Malawi Urban Areas – An Overview. 23(6), 42–52. https://doi.org/10.9734/AJEE/2024/v23i655.
Arenhart, R.S., Martins, T., Ueda, R.M., Souza, A.M., Zanini, R.R. (2024). Energy use and its contributors in hotel buildings: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 19(10): e0309745. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309745
Arenhart, R.S.; Souza, A.M., Zanini, R.R. (2022). Energy Use and Its Key Factors in Hotel Chains. Sustainability 2022, 14, 8239. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148239.
ADB. (2020). Waste to Energy in the Age of the Circular Economy: Best Practice Handbook. Asian Development Bank.
Aisyah, N. et al. (2021). Knowledge, awareness and understanding of the practice and support policies on renewa-ble energy: Exploring the perspectives of in-service teachers and polytechnics lecturers. Energy Reports, 7, 3410–3427. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2021.05.031.
Aditya, S.B. et al. (2020). Awareness On Renewable Energy Among General Population - A Survey, 07(01), 2824–2841.
Alderton, M. (2018). Study: Hotels Save $7 for Every $1 Spent Reducing Food Waste. Northstar Meetings Group.
AAH. (2020). Electrical Design and Installation of Solar Pumps: Guidelines. Action Against Hunger.
Allery, T. A., Martino, A. and Begay, S. (2018). Solar Street Lighting: Using Renewable Energy for Safety for the Tur-tle Mountain Band of Chippewa, 1–21. Department of Energy, Country?
Adams, E. A. and Smiley, S. L. (2018). Urban-rural water access inequalities in Malawi: implications for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals, 42(4), 217-226. https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-8947.12150.
Cingoski, V., & Petrevska, B. (2018). Making hotels more energy efficient: the managerial perception. Economic Re-search-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 31(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2017.1421994
Circular Economy. (2023). The Carbon Emissions of Staying in a Hotel. https://circularecology.com/news/the-carbon-emissions-of-staying-in-a-hotel.
Destination Malawi. (2017). Malawi: Rich in Contrast, Compact in Size, Big in Hospitality One. Land & Marine Publi-cations World Bank. (2018). Systematic Country Diagnostic: Breaking the Cycle of Low Growth and Slow Poverty Reduction.
Dupas, P. et al. (2021). Expanding Access to Clean Water for the Rural Poor: Experimental Evidence from Malawi.
Donastorg, A, Renukappa, S and Suresh, S. (2017). Financing Renewable Energy Projects in Developing Countries: A Critical Review. IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 83 (1), 012012. doi :10.1088/1755-1315/83/1/012012.
EAD. (2021). Malawi’s first biennial update report to the Conference of Parties (CoP) of the United Nations Frame-work Convention On Climate Change (UNFCCC). Environmental Affairs Department.
Gadama, J. (2025). Film and tourism sectors unite to boost Malawi’s economy. The Maravi Post. https://www.maravipost.com/film-and-tourism-sectors-unite-to-boost-malawis-economy/ (Accessed on 29th May, 2025).
Ghimire, B., Muneenam, U., & Techato, K. (2024). Renewable Energy Use in Green Hotels for Sustainability: A Sys-tematic Review Renewable Energy Use in Green Hotels for Sustainability: A Systematic Review. November 2023. https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.14521
GoM. (2018). Government of Malawi National Energy Policy, (July), 191.
GoM & UNDP. (2020). Access to Clean and Renewable Energy (ACRE) Project 2020-2023.
GoM. (2017). Malawi Growth and Development Strategy III (MGDS-III): Building a Productive, Competitive and Re-silient Nation. Retrieved from https://cepa.rmportal.net/Library/government-publications/the-malawi-growth-and-development-strategy-mgds-iii.
GoM. (2019a). Government of Malawi National Tourism Policy 2019. Government of Malawi.
GoM. (2019b). National Waste Management Strategy. Government of Malawi.
GoM. (2016). National Climate Change Management Policy - Malawi, (June), 1–30. Retrieved from https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/NCCM-Policy-Final-06-11-2016.pdf.
GoM. (2024). Malawi’s Mitigation Landscape and M&E of Mitigation.
Hou, Y. (2018). Reasonable use of artificial lighting in building energy saving. AIP Conference Proceedings, 1971(040018). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5041160.
International Energy Agency (IEA). (2023).Renewables 2023: Analysis and forecast to 2028. https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023.
IRENA. (2021a). Renewable Energy Benefits Leveraging Local Capacity for Solar Water Heaters. International Re-newable Energy Agency.
IRENA. (2021b). Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2020, International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi. ISBN 978-92-9260-348-9.
IRENA. (2020). Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2019, International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi.
ICLEI. (2021). Lilongwe: Waste as the entry point for GBI and Nexus intervention. Local Government for Sustainabil-ity.
Kaheneko, O. (2021). Research on Application of Natural Light in Modern Architecture Design. The International Journal of Science & Technology, 9(2), 42-…. https://doi.org/10.24940/theijst/2021/v9/i2/st2102-013.
Karvounidi, M. D., Alexandropoulou, A. P., & Fousteris, A. E. (2024). Towards Sustainable Hospitality: Enhancing Energy Efficiency in Hotels. 3(6), 410–420. https://doi.org/10.56472/25835238/IRJEMS-V3I6P145
Kassri, O.E. (2019). Solar Water Heater Design Capstone Design. School of Science & Engineering – Al Akhawayn University.
Kemausuor, F., Adaramola, M. S. and Morken, J. (2018). A Review of Commercial Biogas Systems and Lessons for Africa. Energies 2018, 11, 2984; doi:10.3390/en11112984 www.mdpi.com/journal/energies
Kumar, S. (2017). Energy: -Conservation, Management, Efficiency & Storage. Internaltional Journal of Applied Engi-neering Research 8(7), 80-85.
MacAskill, S., Becken, S., & Coghlan, A. (2023). Engaging hotel guests to reduce energy and water consumption: A quantitative review of guest impact on resource use in tourist accommodation. Cleaner and Responsible Con-sumption, 11(November), 100156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clrc.2023.100156.
Mar, K. A., Unger, C., Walderdorff, L., & Butler, T. (2022). Beyond CO 2 equivalence : The impacts of methane on climate , ecosystems , and health. Environmental Science and Policy, 134(March 2021), 127–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2022.03.027.
Makoondlall-Chadee, T., & Bokhoree, C. (2024). Environmental Sustainability in Hotels: A Review of the Relevance and Contributions of Assessment Tools and Techniques. Administrative Sciences, 14(12), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci14120320
Magombo, A., Rogerson, C. M. and Rogerson, J. M. (2017). Accommodation services for competitive tourism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Historical evidence from Malawi. Bulletin of Geography, 38(38), 73–92. https://doi.org/10.1515/bog-2017-0035.
Magombo, P. U. and Kosamu, I. B. M. (2016). Challenges of water accessibility in the urban centres of Malawi: a case study of Blantyre City. African Journal of EnvironmentalScience and Technology, 10(10), 380–385. https://doi.org/10.5897/AJEST2015.2126.
Malawi Priorities Project. (2021). Policy brief: The Costs and Benefits of Reforming the Power Sector for Business Friendliness in Malawi.
Mbadinga, D. J. and Alibaba, H. Z. (2019). Improvement of Thermal Efficiency Through Natural Lighting: Energy Saving. United International Journal for Research & Technology, 1(05), 1–11.
MCC. (2020). Infrastructure Development Project. Millennium Challenge Corporation. https://www.mcc.gov/resources/story/section-mwi-star-report-infrastructure-project/
Mensah, I. (2020). Waste management practices of small hotels in Accra: An application of the waste management hierarchy model. Journal of Global Business Insights, 5(1), 33–46. https://doi.org/10.5038/2640-6489.5.1.1081.
Mohan, A., & Ngwira, M. (2019). Monthly average irradiation forecasting for Malawi’s solar resources. International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering, 8(8), 1049–1060.
Nadu, T. (2002). Best practices in Solar Water Pumping. Power, 1–46. Auroville Renewable Energy (AuroRE).
Ndala, G. and Ndala, N. N. (2022). Assessing the role of community members in waste disposal in Lilongwe - Capital City of Malawi, African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. 16(3), 111–125. https://doi.org/10.5897/AJEST2021.3076.
Ndawala, T. (2025). Malawi Tourism: A Resilient Recovery and Promising Growth. Project Malawi. https://projectmal.com/malawi-tourism-a-resilient-recovery-and-promising-growth/ (Accessed on 29th April, 2025).
Omidiani, A. and Hashemihezaveh, S. (2016). Waste Management in Hotel Industry in India: A Review. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 6, Issue 9, September 2016, ISSN 2250-3153.
Painuly, J.P., Wohlgemuth, N. (2022). Renewable Energy Technologies: Barriers and Policy Implications. In: Sayigh, A. (eds) Sustainable Energy Development and Innovation. Innovative Renewable Energy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76221-6_60.
UN. (2018). Analysis of the Voluntary National Reviews Relating to Sustainable development goal 7. United Nations.
UN Habitat. ( 2024). Waste Wise Cities Tool in Zomba City, Malawi.
Ran, B., Qiu, S., Zhang, Y., Zeng, L., Zhu, J., Xiang, Z., & Long, J. (2022). Air conditioning energy consumption meas-urement and saving strategy analysis for an office building in hot summer and cold winter area. Advances in Building Energy Research, 17(1), 73–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512549.2022.2160812.
Rahman, M. et al. (2019). Higher initial costs for renewables electricity: Emission, water and job-creation benefits offset the higher costs, 1372–1381.
Ruiz-Rosa, I. and Mendoza-Jimenez, J. (2022). Water Resource Management in Hotels Using a Sustainable Balanced Scorecard. Sustainability 14(13), 8171.
Rajini, P.A.D. and Samarakoon, S.B.R.G.K. (2017). Factors Influencing Water Consumption in Hotel Facilities IRCMF conference. (December 2016).
Szakály, Z. et al. (2021). Attitude toward and Awareness of Renewable Energy Sources. Energies 14(1), 22.
Sannö, A. et al. (2019). Approaching Sustainable Energy Management Operations in a Multinational Industrial Cor-poration, Sustainability, 11(3), 754. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11030754.
Sarangi, G. K. (2018). Green Energy Finance in India: Challenges and Solutions. Asian Development Bank Institute, (863).
Ștefănică, M. and Butnaru, G. I. (2019). Some Good Practices for Reducing Energy Consumption in Hotels: A Com-parative Analysis, 2019. https://doi.org/10.5171/2019.985409.
Steffen, B. (2020). Estimating the cost of capital for renewable energy projects. Energy Economics, 88, 104783. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104783.
Schulze, M. et al. (2016). Energy management in industry: a systematic review of previous findings and an integra-tive conceptual framework. Journal of cleaner Production, 112, 3692–3708.
Senthilkumar, K. and Taj, G. (2020). Day-light Analysis of an office building to enhance its energy efficiency. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 955(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/955/1/012018.
Singh, P. (2018). Built Architecture: The Role of Natural Light Built Architecture. International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews 5(3), 55.
Singh, A.B., Mishra, Y., and Yadav, S. (2024). Toward Sustainability: Interventions for Implementing Energy-Efficient Systems into Hotel Buildings. Eng. Proc. 2024, 67, 80. https://doi.org/10.3390/ engproc2024067080
Schulz, J. et al. (2021). Renewable On-Site Power Generation for Manufacturing Companies— Technologies, Model-ling, and Dimensioning. Sustainability, 13(7), 3898.
Times Tech. (2020). Energy conservation, efficiency and management is all about using energy when it is required. https://timestech.in/energy-conservation-energy-efficiency-and-management/
World Bank. (2018). Malawi Systematic Country Diagnostic: Breaking the Cycle of Low Growth and Slow Poverty Reduction.
Yang, Z. (2017). Research on natural lighting in reading spaces of university libraries in Jinan under the perspective of energy-efficiency, IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 94(1), pp012181. doi :10.1088/1755-1315/94/1/012181.
Zhu, T., Li, R. and Li, C. (2017). The Analysis of Natural Lighting Simulation and Study on Energy Saving in Cigarette Factory. Procedia Engineering, 205, 895–901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2017.10.097.
Zohoori, M. and Ghani, A. (2017). Municipal Solid Waste Management Challenges and Problems for Cities in Low-Income and Developing Countries. International Journal of Science and Engineering Applications, 6(2), 39-48. https://doi.org/10.7753/IJSEA0602.1002.
Zakaria, S.U. et al. (2019). Public Awareness Analysis on Renewable Energy in Malaysia. IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Envi-ron. Sci. 268(1), 012105 https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/268/1/012105.
World Economic Forum. (2021). Renewable energy is cheaper than previously thought, says a new report - and could be a gamechanger in the climate change battle. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/10/how-cheap-can-renewable-energy-get/

Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Hope Baxter Chamdimba, Emmanuel Mtanila Banda

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.