A tender has been launched for construction of solar hybrid minigrids in Mozambique. The Mozambican Energy Fund (Funae) and the Belgian Development Agency (Enabel) called for tenders for technical and financial feasibility study for five hybrid solar mini-grids project.
The five mini-hybrid solar grids project is part of Phase 2 of the Renewable Energy for Rural Development (RERD2). It is an initiative of the Government of Mozambique launched in 2018 with the aim of providing electricity services from renewable energy sources in rural areas, including hydropower, solar and solar hybrid. According to the 2018 report of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), in Mozambique only 5% of people living in rural areas have access to electricity. The project will run until 2023. It is financed by the Government of Mozambique with the support of the Government of Belgium.
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Three of the sites will be located in the Zambezi province and two in the Nampula province. Interested companies have until 30 March 2020 to express their interest. The project is set to contribute to the achievement of Mozambique goals for the diversification of the energy mix targets and decentralization of the energy generation, with the aim to give access to energy to 100% of the population by 2030.
Mozambique has a total renewable potential of 23,000 GW. Solar potential is the most abundant resource at 23,000 GW, followed by hydro (19 GW), wind (5 GW), biomass (2 GW), and geothermal (0.1 GW).
Of this total resource, approximately 7.5 GW of priority projects have been identified in the Atlas, comprising 5.6 GW of hydro, 1.1 GW of Wind, 0.6 GW of solar, 0.13 GW of biomass, and 20 MW of geothermal. The Government’s renewable strategy also includes targets for the installation of 100,000 solar water heaters and 5,000 solar refrigerators up to 2025.
