Benguela - The Angolan government's strategy for energy transition aims to reach a photovoltaic capacity of 1,000 Megawatts by 2027, said the Minister of Energy and Water, João Baptista Borges, in coastal Benguela province.
The Minister of Energy and Water was speaking following a visit by the Portuguese Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, to the country's largest photovoltaic plant, in the town of Biópio, which has already introduced 188.9 Megawatts of its production capacity into the National Electricity System.
Built by the international consortium formed by the Portuguese company MCA and the US company Sun Africa, with an investment of over 256 million euros, the Biópio photovoltaic park has 509,40 solar panels on an area of 436 hectares.
In addition, Benguela also has a second photovoltaic plant installed in Baía Farta, which is injecting 96 MWp of power into the national electricity grid, with funding totalling more than 130 million euros, guaranteed by the Swedish Export Promotion Agency (SEK).
The Biópio photovoltaic plant has the capacity to supply around 1.8 million people, while the Baía Farta plant will benefit half a million consumers.
According to João Baptista Borges, the project is being replicated in various provinces of the country and the forecast is to have 1,000 Megawatts of solar energy capacity by 2027.
The minister said that added to the hydroelectric capacity, the country should have around 9,000 Megawatts installed in the National Electricity System.
He explained that around 72 per cent of this energy forecast in the energy balance will be clean, in an explicit reference to hydro and solar sources.
Impact
João Baptista Borges reiterated the government's objective of ensuring that clean energy can benefit approximately 16 million Angolans by 2026, which represents half the population.
To this end, he admitted that the investment to be made not only covers the sources of production, but also the energy transmission networks, as part of the expansion of distribution to more localities.
That's why he highlighted ‘the great effort’ being made to interconnect the Centre with the South of the country, i.e. Huambo province with Huíla and Namibe.
As these towns in the Centre and South gain access to more energy, Minister João Baptista Borges also foresees a reduction in thermal production and costs.
‘If we want most of the population to have access to electricity, our goal has to be universalisation,’ he said, although he admitted that “it won't be possible to do this in one step”.
According to the government official, in order to reach this goal, it is necessary to produce ever cheaper energy in order to save resources and gain scale.
On the other hand, João Baptista Borges also noted that the solar energy injected into the National Electricity System will help reduce thermal energy production and help manage reservoirs
He also clarified that these parks are not associated with accumulation batteries, because their function is to introduce solar production capacity into the electricity system.
‘The solar parks are connected to the electricity system during the day and at night, when there is no sun, they come off,’ he emphasised.
Reducing polluting emissions
The two parks in Benguela are part of a group of seven installed in the country, with a total capacity of 370 MWp, in the provinces of Huambo, Bié, Lunda-Norte (in Lucapa), Lunda-Sul (in Saurimo) and Moxico (in Luena), some of which are already in operation.
The 7MWp parks in Bailundo (Huambo), Cuíto (14.5 MWp) and Lucala (7MWp) have yet to be completed.
The seven solar parks will make it possible to supply renewable and clean electricity to around 2.4 million people, thus contributing to an annual reduction in polluting emissions of around one million tonnes of CO2 (carbon dioxide).
Another advantage is that it eliminates the need to consume around 1.4 million litres of diesel fuel in generators and thermal production, which has highly polluting effects, allowing for significant savings in imports. JH/CRB/DAN/DOJ
