The Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric Plant (HCB), the country’s largest producer of hydroelectric energy, has awarded a contract to the Austrian company ANDRITZ for the rehabilitation of the Cahora Bassa power plant, located on the Zambezi River. The project is valued at several hundred million dollars and was recorded in the multinational’s order book in the last quarter of 2024, the company announced in a statement made public on Wednesday, July 16.
Built in 1975, the Cahora Bassa plant has an installed capacity of 2,075 megawatts (MW) and supplies more than half of the electricity consumed in the country, with the remainder exported to neighboring states. The infrastructure is considered a strategic asset for national economic and social development.
According to the statement, the rehabilitation project, named REABSUL II, “aims to increase the efficiency, reliability, and availability of the plant.” The power of each of the five turbines will be increased by more than 4%, reaching 433 MW per unit.
Under the contract, “ANDRITZ will supply five new 480 MVA generators, five new Francis turbine runners, control and protection systems, as well as hydromechanical structures.” The contract also includes design, engineering, manufacturing, transportation, installation, testing, and commissioning of the equipment.
The document states that “the work will be carried out in two phases: the first lasting three years, during which equipment will be designed and manufactured and local infrastructure prepared; and the second phase will involve the progressive replacement of the generating units while maintaining continuous operation of the plant. This intervention will require careful coordination with the rehabilitation works at the Songo converter substation, also managed by HCB.” The Austrian multinational expressed “its pride in participating in a project of such importance for the region and reaffirmed its commitment to the development of the country’s hydroelectric sector.”
The rehabilitation of the Cahora Bassa plant comes at a time when the government aims to strengthen control over national energy resources, planning by 2030 “to reverse the current model of direct energy export to South Africa through Eskom, to prioritize domestic supply via the public company EDM.”
Source: DE
