Mozambique’s electricity company, EDM (Electricidade de Moçambique) said on Tuesday that it plans to make the country the main power generation center by 2030, in order to attract more investments and thus make up for the energy deficit in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Speaking during the 59th General Meeting of the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP), which is taking place between October 11 and 13 in Maputo, EDM’s Director of Market Operations, Luís Ganje, said that, in general, in the SADC region, there is an energy deficit of about seven gigawatts between the interconnected countries.
The official referred that this deficit concerns mainly to South Africa, which recently experienced blackouts in certain cities. “This is the largest market at a regional level, hence it can resort to SAPP to supply its internal needs, that is, the neighboring countries have the opportunity to make investments in the areas of generation and transmission to meet South Africa’s demand,” he explained.
For Luís Ganje, the situation experienced in that country represents an investment opportunity, since “Mozambique is positioned as one of the largest energy exporters in SADC, it is a country with energy surplus, which it can sell in the market.
“The energy deficit in the region is much greater than the capacity that Mozambique produces at the moment. But it is in this scope that the country is working to become a pole of energy generation in the SADC region. We have several projects underway to respond to this situation in the region. Naturally, it is a process, but by 2030, with the entry into operation of the Mphanda Nkuwa project and the others, Mozambique will become the generation center, not only to meet the national level, but also to meet the needs of SADC,” emphasized the official.
“Mozambique is positioned as one of the largest exporters of energy in SADC, it is a country with surplus energy, which it can sell in the market”
The source also added that EDM hopes to achieve universal access and expand power generation systems by 2030 under the Energy for All project. “We have the Renewable Energy Auction Program (PROLER) that by 2025 will inject about 200 megawatts into the grid from solar sources, and it is this energy that we expect to sell on the regional market along with the other sources,” he revealed.
“Right now we are not exporting renewable energy, we have the production of about 30 megawatts at the Mocuba Solar Plant that is intended for domestic consumption, and with the projects that we are implementing and the others that are in the construction phase, we will start exporting energy through renewable sources,” he added.
SAPP was created with the objective of, together with the countries of the SADC region, through the electricity companies, to develop activities with the aim of supplying the energy needs, allowing countries with a surplus to sell it to countries with a deficit.