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Mozambique aims to position itself as Africa’s biggest hydropower producer and launch a green hydrogen industry.
The government has ambitious plans to add 14,000 megawatts of hydropower capacity, primarily concentrated between 2030 and 2040, according to a 60-page Energy Transition Strategy obtained by Bloomberg. Also, a hydrogen program will be set this year, it said in the document, which hasn’t been released publicly.
Despite being one of the world’s poorest nations, Mozambique possesses rich reserves of hydropower, wind, solar, and natural gas resources.
The proposal is a blueprint of how one of the world’s poorest nations wants to leverage green energy potential for economic growth and industrialize the impoverished agrarian economy, even five decades after gaining independence from Portugal.
“Mozambique has vast energy assets,” said the government, which puts the cost of the transition at $80 billion by 2050. “The strategic use of these energy assets can accelerate the transition to a middle-income industrialized economy.”
Mozambique joins a growing list of developing nations seeking international funding to facilitate their transition to cleaner energy sources.
Countries such as South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Senegal have garnered financial pledges of $47 billion from some of the world’s wealthiest nations to reduce their dependence on coal and other fossil fuels.
At the core of the proposal is the Zambezi River, Africa’s fourth longest. Mozambique, which already operates the 2,075-megawatt Cahora Bassa power plant on the river, is currently overseeing the construction of the 1,500-megawatt, $5 billion Mphanda Nkuwa dam led by a consortium including TotalEnergies SE and Japan’s Sumitomo Corp.
Recently, there were reports that the country is considering ending a 50-year hydropower supply agreement with South Africa. The plan is to redirect the 1,150 megawatts of power currently sold to South Africa from its Cahora Bassa plant for domestic use.
In the coming decade, spanning from 2030 to 2040, Mozambique aims to increase its hydropower capacity by 9,000 megawatts. Beyond that timeframe, the country plans to attract investments for additional plants, following a similar model to that of the Mphanda Nkuwa project, as outlined in the document.
Such an expansion would allow Mozambique to compete with Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the provision of power from hydro resources. Ethiopia built a giant hydropower plant on the Blue Nile, while Congo has long proposed constructing Grand Inga, which would potentially be the world’s biggest hydro project.
The government, which repeatedly stressed the need for private investment due to its inability to self-fund such programs, also wants to establish industrial parks to use clean energy. Billions of dollars in expected revenue from natural gas projects in the north of the country are anticipated to transform the economy, but construction has been delayed by an Islamist militant insurgency.
