RENEWABLE ENERGY REACHES 4.5 MILLION MOZAMBICANS

New and renewable sources of energy are benefitting about 4.5 million Mozambican consumers, which is 18.5 per cent of the total population, according to the deputy national director of renewable energy, in the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy, Marcelina Mataveia.She was speaking on Tuesday at the first fair on renewable energy, organized by the Ministry in partnership with Maputo Municipal Council, as part of the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Mozambican independence on 25 June 1975.The fair is intended to show the potential of renewable energies, with displays of photovoltaic systems, solar panels and other technologies that produce energy in a sustainable manner.Mataveia said that the country has, in recent years, been banking on renewable sources of energy to overcome the country’s electricity deficit, since it is quite impossible to hook up every remote locality to the national electricity grid based on the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi river.“We are electrifying rural areas that are a long way from the national grid”, she said. “We have been prioritizing solar panels to provide electricity for social infrastructures such as schools and hospitals”.Before the installation of the solar panels there were certain health units which could not offer care which depended on the availability of electricity. But once the solar panels were in place the range of care provided by these health units expanded greatly.The government. Mataveia added, is committed to the mass use of renewable energies, and believes they have a key role to play in the socio-economic development of Mozambique. A range of policy documents have been approved – including the Policy and Strategy on the Development of New and Renewable Energies; the Biofuel Policy and Strategy; and the Strategy for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Renewable Energies.This policy framework, Mataveia said, is intended to create a favourable environment for the development of new and renewable energies.The Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy, she continued, will continue electrification based on renewable sources of power. She believed they are having an enormous impact on the quality of life, particularly in areas that cannot yet be reached by the national grid.