The Mozambican government began a long development undertaking and in 2015, within the four areas elected as pillars of development, electricity was selected as one of the priority areas, and increasing access to energy for Mozambicans was defined as the great mission, having advanced to the electrification of district headquarters.
In 2019, the President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi launched the challenge of electrification of all administrative posts by 2024 and at the time, 135 were not electrified, of which 41 would be through isolated systems. By the end of this year seven are expected to be electrified, according to Pascoal Alberto Bacela, national director of Energy.
“The bet was, by 2024, and is, to cover all administrative posts. A quick survey was made, 135 non-electrified administrative posts were identified and the assessment made allowed us to define and establish that 94 would be electrified through the national electricity grid and the remaining 41 through isolated systems and that is what is happening. By the end of the year, seven will already be covered and our planning shows that by 2024 we will have all the headquarters of administrative posts covered,” said Bacela cited in “O País”.
Also according to the same newspaper, the Government’s strategic vision has as a goal the universal access to electric energy in Mozambique in 2030, as part of the plan assumed internationally and as it is not possible to take the public network to all points of the country, the option of isolated systems was chosen, based on solar panels and wind energy, besides residential solar panels for those people who are not grouped enough to sustain the investment of a mini-grid.
Last week, the administrative post of Matchedje, Sanga district, in Niassa province, joined the list of solar panel-based photovoltaic mini-grids to come into operation in the country. Isália Dimene, head of the Quality and Environment Division at the National Energy Fund (FUNAE), gave the overview of that project which cost the state coffers 134 million meticais.
“These energy issues have a lot to do with believing. When you start doing a project people always have some doubt, after many years in the dark. So we did an initial survey to see what potentialities existed, how the population is organised so that we could find the best way to electrify. We always have to bear in mind that we are talking about a mini-grid and there are technical requirements that need to be followed, and it is within this scope that a data survey study was carried out here, there was very strong coordination with the local communities to be able to identify technically and practically how we could make this combination so that we could cover this community of Matchedje.”
The Matchedje photovoltaic plant has a peak production capacity of 223 kwatts, and is currently lighting around 200 beneficiaries, but has the capacity to connect up to 900 beneficiaries, whether medium domestic or commercial.
The Matchedje photovoltaic mini-plant, in addition to the solar panels, has 576 batteries that can store electricity to supply power for two days, even without solar irradiation. A network of 3.3 km of medium voltage and 6.6 km of low voltage has now been extended. Some institutions are already benefiting from electricity, such as the local secondary school, the hospital, which will now be able to deliver babies at night, the weather station and domestic consumers who for the first time have access to electricity.
“There are mills that used to run on fuel and sometimes they would stop for four or five days without working, but this will change because we will have mills using energy”, testified Ernesto Ricardo, community leader of the third level, who at 58 years of age, a native of Matchedje, now uses electricity in his home.
