Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has reaffirmed that renewable energies will amount to 20 per cent of the country’s energy mix, within the next 25 years, as well as boost efforts to reach the government’s goal to ensure universal access to electricity by 2030.
Nyusi reiterated this commitment at the inauguration on Friday of the Metoro Solar Power Plant, in Ancuabe district of the northern province of Cabo Delgado, budgeted at 56 million US dollars, of which 40 million were disbursed, as a loan, by the French Development Agency (AFD) and its subsidiary “Proparco”.
The Metoro complex, the country’s second largest solar power station, stretching over 138 hectares, consists of 121,500 solar panels and has an installed capacity to generate 41.310 Kilovolts peak (kWp).
It will annually generate 69 Gigawatt hours (GW/h) ensuring enough electricity for nearly 140,000 people, around 75 per cent of the residents of Pemba, the provincial capital.
The energy generated by the power station will be delivered to the national power grid under the management of the publicly owned electricity company, EDM.
Nyusi said that the infrastructure mirrors the country’s great strides towards the goal of generating an additional 600 megawatts of power during his second five year term of office, part of which will be based on renewable energies including sources such as wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, wave and solar sources.
“The Metoro power station comes as a response to the need to diversify the energy mix envisaged by the government’s programme, and is the country’s second largest solar power plant. It will assure stability and redundancy of the whole power supply system of the northern region,” Nyusi stressed.
Nyusi declared that the solar station will also increase the contribution of renewable energies to mitigate the impact of climate change and simultaneously answer the rapidly growing domestic and regional demand for power.
The Metoro energy complex, Nyusi pointed out, will also strengthen the country’s power security and autonomy, and can boost the construction of more health centres, schools, water supply systems and irrigation in the rural areas.
The French Ambassador to Mozambique, David Izzo, hailed the benefits of the project pointing out that it will reduce annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 49,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, thus making a significant contribution to the fight against climate change.
Izzo stated that, under its corporate social responsibility, throughout the 25 year operational period, part of the income generated by the power project will be channeled to community projects, drawn up in partnership with both the authorities and the local communities.
Over two million Euros will be invested in a wide range of projects such as drought resilient farming.
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