Electricity of Mozambique (EDM) plans to complete the construction of the power transmission line with Malawi this year, as part of its efforts to become a ‘regional reference’ in energy supply.
‘We are interconnecting with Malawi at 450 Kv. It’s a line that will be completed this year and will allow energy to flow to the region,’ said the company’s chairmans, Marcelino Gildo Alberto, on the sidelines of the meeting of the Coordinating Council of the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy, taking place in the district of Mossuril, in the province of Nampula, northern Mozambique.
According to Alberto, so far Mozambique has three connections with countries in the region to which it also sells energy, namely South Africa, Zimbabwe and Eswatini.
He emphasised that as well as a new line with Malawi, the country has a project in the pipeline to build a connection with Zambia, which already consumes energy from Mozambique through the Southern African Power Pool system, and has already completed feasibility studies.
‘We are currently looking for funding to interconnect with Zambia,’ said Marcelino Alberto, pointing out that the aim is to connect the country to all the members of the southern region.
‘Last year alone, 22 per cent of the volume of energy produced was for export, which is beneficial because it guarantees foreign currency for the country,’ he added.
The creation of new lines to transport electricity will be accompanied by new power generation projects. One of these is the Temane Thermal Power Station, located in Inhambane province, which will produce 450 MW.
‘At the beginning of 2025, we could have 450 MW available for domestic and regional consumption,’ he emphasised.
Although production efforts are proceeding at a good pace, the chairmans said that vandalisation of infrastructure remains the main challenge, with the public company losing 30 million dollars last year alone.
‘Vandalisation is a big cancer for our company. They take the copper and aluminium from these infrastructures and sell it on the market – we believe the South African market. Even when it comes to the transformers, sometimes they disconnect the Transmission Posts (PTs) and remove their entire core,’ he lamented.
Despite this challenge, the expansion of the electricity grid in Mozambique, according to the official, has good prospects, with the company registering almost 4,000 new connections last year alone.
‘This figure represents a historic milestone and has raised the bar in terms of access to energy. Of the 135 administrative posts that had yet to be connected, we have already connected around 60, with 75 still to go, and despite the financial freezes we have, there is a great effort to try and complete this milestone,’ he concluded.
