AfDB promotes the development of renewable energies in Mozambique

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a grant of $2.5 million to the Mozambican government to develop renewable energy resources.

The grant, from the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA), administered by the Bank, will be used to implement the Mozambique Renewable Energy Integration Program (MREP).

"With the support of the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa, Mozambique’s capacity to integrate larger shares of variable renewables will increase its efforts to become a major regional electricity supplier", said Daniel Schroth, Director of the African Development Bank's Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Department.

He added, "Given that Mozambique is one of the most highly climate-vulnerable countries in the world, the project will help build a more sustainable and resilient power generation infrastructure."

The funding will assist the national electricity company to provide financial support for technical, economic, environmental, and social feasibility studies for the development of a solar floating power plant in Chicamba reservoir. In addition, it will support funding for a feasibility study for Energy Battery Systems Storage in up to ten sites, as well as capacity building for EDM´s personnel, and support for tender preparation.

“We are very excited to launch the activities under the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa in Mozambique, which comes with a set of very strategic and innovative projects, that will contribute to diversify the energy matrix and fund a study on storage needs, that will enable the development of more renewable energy projects,” said Marcelino Gildo Alberto, Chairman of EDM, the beneficiary. “The support under SEFA also includes a robust capacity building program, that will enable our personnel to develop strategic skills related to the development and management of renewable energy projects,” he added.

The donation will also be used to conduct studies to increase the share of variable renewable energy production in the Mozambique's energy mix. Feasibility studies to develop floating photovoltaic solar energy will be conducted in existing EDM hydropower assets.

The initiative aims to unlock USD 100 billion in public and private capital while tackling three human problems: reaching one billion people with reliable renewable energy; avoid four billion tons of carbon emissions; and building an access ramp to opportunities by creating, enabling or improving 150 million jobs.

The World Bank unlocked USD 31.7 billion in 2022 to help countries deal with climate change, which represents a 19% increase from the USD 26.6 billion achieved in the previous year.

Source: AfDB and O País journal.