South African Ministers of Planning and Electricity have met with Mozambique’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy to seek supply options to address the electricity shortage South Africa faces.
“We have a deficit of 6,000 megawatts [MW] of power and we would like to explore all options that are within Mozambique’s reach,” said Maropene Ramokgopa, minister of the Presidency for Planning, and Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, who oversees the area of Electricity, cited in a statement from Mozambique’s Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy (Mireme).
“Each megawatt that is available will have an important contribution to reducing the deficit that has affected our country and that has been at the root of blackouts, seriously affecting our economy,” Maropene said during the talks.
Carlos Zacarias, Mozambique’s Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, “assured Mozambique’s willingness to work together with South Africa promising to assess short-term solutions,” the Mireme statement read.
The parties will meet again in June to assess all possibilities for cooperation.
“We are certain that Mozambique and South Africa can take the regional energy sector to a higher level by exploiting the potential and strengthening interconnection infrastructure,” Zacarias pointed out.
South Africa is already the main buyer of the installed capacity of the Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric Dam in central Mozambique, the largest producing reservoir in Southern Africa (2075 MW), under a power purchase agreement that runs until 2029.
“The country is facing an unprecedented energy crisis and Mozambique, with its vast resources between renewable sources (solar, hydro, wind, biomass) and natural gas is positioned as a solution for the neighbouring country,” Mireme said in the same statement.
Among several ongoing projects is the Temane Thermal Power Plant, the largest power plant in the post-independence period, with a capacity of 450MW as of January 2025, using the natural gas reserves of Pande and Temane.
“This project will increase to 975 MW the installed capacity from 2014 to 2024 and, taking into account the increase in demand by 260 MW in the same period, Mozambique should have about 700 MW of surplus, after meeting the country’s domestic needs,” Mireme stresses.
In the medium and long term, the energy to be produced by the Mphanda Nkuwa hydroelectric project – still on paper – also appears as a solution. In a first phase it will have an installed capacity of up to 1,500 MW, with the potential for another 900 MW expansion in a second phase.
Mireme announced on Friday that a consortium led by Electricity of France and that includes Total as a “preferred bidder” to develop the project, budgeted at US$4.5 billion.
Mundo ao Minuto