Celebrating two years of fruitful collaboration for the promotion of Renewables in Mozambique

Dear readers,

This month we celebrate the second anniversary of GET.invest Mozambique, the Mozambican country window of GET.invest. GET.invest is a European programme that mobilises investment in renewable energy, supported by the European Union, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria. Since 2019, the programme has been operating the country window in Mozambique funded by the European Union and Germany, implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

GET.invest Mozambique as such is part of PROMOVE ENERGIA – a comprehensive strategy between the EU and the Government of Mozambique to provide households and businesses in rural areas with access to sustainable and affordable energy. Within this strategy, GET.invest Mozambique together with the Energy Resource Centre (ERC) is part the Project Preparation Facility which aims at ensuring an appropriate commercial environment, sufficient capacity of all stakeholders and a portfolio of bankable investment project.

Let us use this anniversary as an occasion to reflect on the events and achievements of the past two years, and to take an outlook on what there is yet to come!

Looking back two years, one major goal stood at the beginning of GET.invest’s engagement in Mozambique: contributing to the enhancement of access to clean and affordable energy in the country. The achievement of such a goal may be metaphorically seen like assembling a puzzle which requires multiple pieces to fit together; and this perhaps best describes GET.invest’s approach.

Pursuing the overall mission of mobilising investments in renewable energy, GET.invest Mozambique has worked with different puzzle pieces to support the access to finance and funding for clean energy projects and companies in Mozambique.

One such a puzzle piece is the close collaboration with associations that pursue the same goals. Here, we have for instance entered into strong partnership with ALER and AMER (Mozambican Renewable Energy Association) and have since then provided mutual support to our activities.

Another piece is the advisory of private developers and companies on their path to accessing finance. In addition to the Mozambican government’s recent efforts in creating a more beneficial regulatory framework for private sector investments in renewable energy, particularly in rural areas, we provide hands-on and tailored advice services to these private stakeholders which we realize through our GET.invest Finance Catalyst and a team of experienced advisors.

A further piece is providing information on the market and conditions. GET.invest Mozambique together with ALER and other partners, has created several briefings about the Renewables market and is currently preparing two Market Insights which provide targeted information on the use of solar PV the Commercial and Industrial Sectors, and the development of Renewables projects by Independent Energy Producers. Both Market Insights will contain detailed information on market potential, ideas, and business models, to facilitate project feasibility analyses and decision-making by private investors, including decisions regarding foreign equity financing schemes. Companies and investors will thus be able to work more efficiently and save resources during the development phase of investments.

Yet another puzzle piece are domestic banks and their role in financing Renewables. Given the clear need for financing in local currency by Mozambican project developers and companies, we are also working to accelerate the participation of domestic lenders in financing renewable energy. Therefore, GET.invest entered into partnerships with the Banco Nacional de Investimento (BNI), Banco Comercial de Investimentos (BCI), Banco Internacional de Moçambique (BIM) and Moza Banco to strengthen their skills in risk analysis and their knowledge of different types of business models in the Renewables sector through tailored coaching and training sessions. We had the opportunity to address this topic in the last ALER Talk "The Role of National Banks in Financing the Renewable Energy Sector"

Lastly, a puzzle piece are events that bring together the different actors in the Renewables sector and allow them to detect and leverage joint synergies. After facilitating a number of successful events in the past, we have organised another one just this week: the “Renewables for Self-Consumption” event which we hosted and organised together with ALER on 30 November to target the energy market of auto-consumption, specially the Commercial and Industrial Sectors (C&I) and highlight the benefits of Renewables for companies in these sectors and identify financing sources.

We cordially invite you to check the presentations and recordings, including from speakers from the German Embassy and the Delegation of the European Union to Mozambique, in case you were not able to participate or if you wish to revisit the different discussions. 

Before concluding, we would like to thank ALER for the excellent collaboration throughout the past two years and hope it will continue for the next years to come.

With best wishes,

José Mestre, Coordinator of GET.invest Mozambique