The Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric Plant (HCB), in the central province of Tete, Mozambique’s main electricity producer, announced a ‘slight recovery’ in storage and stability in the reservoir’s quota for hydroelectric production in January.
‘As a result of the improvement in inflows in January, the final storage for the month, which had been forecast at 19%, stood at 21.7% with increasing trends in the first week of February,’ reads the HCB press release sent to Lusa on Sunday.
The recovery, the company said, allowed HCB to continue supplying energy to Mozambique, South Africa and other countries in the southern African region “despite the continuation of the regional drought situation that has been observed since the 2023/24 hydrological year, mitigated by the hydro-energy management measures being implemented since 2024”.
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, with almost 800 employees.
In the document, the company justifies the ‘slight recovery’ in storage with the improvement in inflows to the reservoir.
‘The inflows forecast for January were 1,100 cubic metres per second, based on what was observed at the time. However, in the last week of January, significantly positive and higher flows were observed, peaking at around 4,000 cubic metres per second on January 30, which improved the average inflows observed to 1,585 cubic metres per second,’ reads the company’s statement.
Given the rainfall in the centre and north of the country, HCB promises to continue monitoring the situation in the Zambezi River basin and may make ‘possible adjustments to the operating plan in force’ based on the rainfall results.
HCB has estimated record profits of $225 million (€215.4 million) in 2024 and hopes to increase the reduced water storage levels by the end of this year.
In a statement sent to Lusa on 24 January, the management of HCB, one of the largest independent hydroelectric power producers in the southern African region, said it had achieved production of 15,753.52 GigaWatt-hours (GWh) last year.
‘This figure was achieved in an adverse hydro-climatological context characterised by a severe drought imposed by the occurrence of the El Niño phenomenon, whose negative impact led to the adoption and implementation of management measures for the operation of the reservoir aimed at safeguarding the hydraulic-operational safety of the dam and related infrastructures, which allowed Cahora Bassa to have better water storage levels than the dams of upstream countries,’ the statement reads.
The document adds that on 31 December 2024, at the end of the first rainy season, the reservoir reached 305.20 metres above the average sea level, corresponding to 21.19% of useful storage.
The Mozambican state holds 90% 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 share of 7.5% and Eletricidade de Moçambique 2.5%.
Lusa
