The executive director of ALER – Associação Lusófona de Energias Renováveis (Lusophone Renewable Energy Association) said today that Mozambique is the favourite among Portuguese-speaking countries for attracting investment in alternative energy projects, due to its size and also due to its ‘favourable regulatory environment’.
Speaking to Lusa on the sidelines of the webinar: ‘Energising Africa: How EU Financing is Changing the Renewable Landscape?’, Isabel Cancela de Abreu said that among Portuguese-speaking countries, particularly in Africa, ‘there are countries that are more attractive than others’ and that ‘Mozambique is the “hot topic” among Portuguese-speaking countries’ in this area.
The country ‘has size’, but also because it has ‘a favourable regulatory environment’, he said, in addition to the fact that ‘cooperation partners’ have been in Mozambique for a long time, multilateral and bilateral institutions such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) or the World Bank, as well as European Union institutions and countries such as Sweden, Norway and Portugal.
In addition to this, she emphasised, ‘Mozambique is very open to private sector investment,’ in other words, ‘the state gives the concession and the private sector makes the investments and develops the projects,’ added Isabel Cancela de Abreu.
Angola, in her opinion, although it has the same scale as Mozambique, ‘is still very focused on public investment’ and ‘focussed on large projects’.
In addition, it needs a ‘regulatory framework’ and ‘open and competitive contracting processes,’ argued ALER’s executive director.
The debate at the webinar, which included representatives from various international and multilateral institutions that support projects in that sector, and which ALER held in partnership with GreenVenture, a leading company in the development of renewable energy projects, made it clear that there is a lot of European Union funding that countries and projects in Africa can access.
‘The hard part is having good projects,’ concluded the ALER manager.
In this respect too, ‘Mozambique is receiving a lot of attention from this type of mechanism and from the European Union, because it still needs public sector funding and guarantees,’ while Cape Verde doesn’t ‘because it’s at a higher level,’ she said, with ‘low interest rates’ and renewable energy projects with direct access to commercial banks.
Isabel Abreu considers São Tomé and Príncipe to be an example of a country where it will be very difficult to attract investment ‘due to its size and economy of scale’.
In the opinion of the environmental engineer, who has worked for the Portuguese and European renewable energy associations and founded ALER at the end of 2014, ‘one gap’ that was realised in today’s webinar is funding and cooperation institutions for small projects.
The online event aimed to clarify the European Union’s new funding mechanisms and programmes for renewable energy projects in Africa, highlighting Europe’s role ‘as a strategic player in the sector, and promoting investment both at home and in Africa’.
Through the Global Gateway initiative, the European Union aims to support more investment in quality infrastructure that respects social and environmental standards in developing countries.
Africa is currently the continent with the greatest energy shortages, where more than 640 million people have no access to energy, making an increase in electricity production and energy efficiency urgently necessary, the association said in the press release presenting the event.
Lusa
