The Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric Power Plant (HCB) assured today that it will meet its energy production targets for this year, despite the effects of the severe drought influenced by the El Niño phenomenon in southern Africa.
‘Despite the extreme events we are currently experiencing in the Zambezi hydroelectric basin, HCB, in its cautious and judicious adjustment, is managing to produce energy that has already been promised to our customers for the year 2024,’ HCB administrator Nilton Trindade told the media in Songo, Tete province.
The issue is the ‘continuing severe drought’ that has forced the company to adopt ‘cautious management measures’ on the farm, a problem influenced by the occurrence of the El Niño phenomenon in southern Africa.
‘We planned to produce around 15,000 GWh and according to the projections we have regarding water availability we are in a position to meet our targets. We had a higher level of production than projected during the first half of the year and so this pays off, so that by the end of the year we will have the level of energy production as planned,’ emphasised Nilton Trindade.
The Cahora Bassa reservoir is the fourth largest in Africa, with a maximum length of 270 kilometres and 30 kilometres between banks, occupying 2,700 square kilometres and an average depth of 26 metres.
The company points out that at the end of the first half of September, the height of the HCB reservoir was 312.87 metres, corresponding to 44.1% of its useful capacity, ‘a more comfortable situation compared to the upstream dams, which have much lower storages and are implementing one of the most severe restrictions on energy production, a fact that negatively affects’ the release of water downstream.
‘High probabilities of normal rainfall with an above-normal trend over the Zambezi Basin during the 2024/25 rainy season, favoured by the La Niña phenomenon,’ predicts “great possibilities for a reasonable recovery of Cahora Bassa’s storage during 2025, which could gradually allow satisfactory hydroelectric production to be achieved in subsequent years,” the company said in a note sent to Lusa on Thursday.
Lusa reported on 15 August that HCB’s profits increased 56.7 percent up to June, to 8,961 million meticals (127.3 million euros), according to the company, which had already warned of low storage levels.
In the report with the financial statements for the first six months of 2024, the company announced that electricity sales, in quantity, were 6.2 per cent higher than in the same period in 2023 and 3.5 per cent more than planned for the six-month period.
As a result of the financial performance of the first half of the year, ‘it is estimated that net profits by the end of the year will be at the level budgeted, i.e. 13,851.68 million meticals [196.8 million euros],’ the report reads.
The Mozambican state holds 90 per cent of HCB’s share capital, since the reversion to Mozambique, agreed with Portugal in 2007, while the Portuguese company Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN) has a 7.5 per cent share and Eletricidade de Moçambique 2.5 per cent.
Lusa
