Matala - The director of the Matala hydroelectric power plant, Pedro André Pascoal, on Thursday said that the project's start-up had significantly reduced the electricity deficit in Huíla Province and the emission of carbon dioxide.
Speaking to the press, he said that the project's production capacity will also ensure the expansion of the product, “facilitating access to clean, cheap, sustainable and uninterrupted electricity”.
He said that the dam is interconnected with two other sources of production in Lubango (Huila) and in Namibe Province, which will also supply the municipalities of Quipungo, Chibia, Humpata, Bibala and Tômbwa.
He highlighted the fact that the dam will allow the population of the Kandjanguitty sector, in the Micosse commune, to start using electricity from the public grid for the first time in 62 years.
He said that a 12-kilometre distribution line was built on the banks of the Cunene River, which made it possible to electrify the Kandjanguitty sector and other localities.
For 62 years, the more than 15,000 inhabitants of Kandjanguitty, the area where the 20th Motorised Infantry Brigade of the Angolan Armed Forces is based, have consumed energy from thermal sources at a high cost.
The hydroelectric power plant
The Matala Hydroelectric Power Station is one of the country's 14 dams and began to be built in 1954, at the time with an installed production capacity of 18 MW and for its rehabilitation, the Angolan government invested Euros around 106 million.
Located on the Cunene River near the town of Matala, in Huíla province, after its inauguration it was renamed the Salazar Dam, crossed by a bridge of 929 twenty-nine metres long and with two decks, one for cars and the other for trains.
The construction of the dam would in itself generate small neighbourhoods for its employees, like other companies, so at the time an urbanisation plan was drawn up for Matala by architect Vasco Morais Soares.
LHE/MS/MRA/jmc
