The Mocuba Solar Power Station in Mozambique’s Zambézia province will be formally inaugurated on Saturday, when it will start piping 40 megawatts of electricity into the national grid, state-owned Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) said.

EDM production manager Narendra Gulab told Mozambican newspaper Notícias that the venture has been undergoing testing for two weeks and is currently sending between 27 and 28 megawatts of electricity into the national grid.

The plant, construction of which began in June 2018, is the result of a 25% partnership between Mozambican state-owned company Scatec Solar (52.5%) and Norway’s KLP Norfund Investments (22.5%) and cost US$76 million.

The plant, with a capacity of 40 megawatts, is located on the outskirts of the city of Mocuba in Zambázia province and will provide 79 gigawatt hours of electricity to 175,000 homes in northern Mozambique.

The development covers an area of 200 hectares, 170 of which are occupied by panels that capture solar radiation to be transformed into electricity.

The newspaper also reported that the start-up of this solar plant will allow the diversification of Mozambique’s energy matrix, which for decades has basically used electricity produced at the hydroelectric facilities in Cahora Bassa, Tete and Chicamba and Mavuzi, in the province of Manica.

At the beginning of the century, the first natural gas-fired thermoelectric power station was built in Temane, Inhambane province, with a capacity of approximately 1.0 megawatt, progressively extended to the current 11 megawatts.

The largest increase in natural gas production came in 2012, with the first 110-megawatt power plant coming into operation in Ressano Garcia, Maputo province.

— Macauhub