Angola inaugurated sub-Saharan Africa’s largest off-grid photovoltaic (PV) park last week, designed to provide continuous electricity to Cazombo, the provincial capital of Moxico Leste, reports the news outlet Club of Mozambique.
Built by a local subsidiary of the German-headquartered MCA Group, the new Cazombo Photovoltaic Park will provide 24-hour electricity access to around 136,000 residents.
It features a 25.4 megawatts-peak (MWp) solar PV array, a 75.26 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery energy storage system and black start technology, critical to preventing disruption in the event of a blackout.
Some 12,000 of the 16,000 planned household connections in Cazombo have already been installed, with 3,000 already active.
“It is a historic milestone for the province of Moxico Leste and for Angola,” energy minister João Baptista Borges said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, emphasising that the new park is “much more than solar panels: it means progress, inclusion and energy independence.”
The Cazombo plant is just the first of 46 solar minigrids planned in Angola under an ambitious rural electrification plan launched by MCA in 2023.
Budgeted at over US$1 billion, the project will benefit 60 communities, in six Angolan provinces, providing autonomous minigrids that operate without relying on diesel backup or other polluting and expensive thermal generation.
Fuel is a scarce, expensive resource that is difficult to transport to the remote province of Moxico Leste, noted Borges at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The new solar park is expected to slash annual fuel requirements by almost 10 million litres, translating to an estimated reduction of 37,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.
Governor Crispiniano dos Santos hopes the project will also mobilise private investment, expand employment opportunities and boost agricultural and industrial development in the new province.
Another MCA project, aimed at collecting and treating water from the Zambezi River, will also benefit Cazombo once completed in July 2027.
The Ministry of Energy and Water project, with investment of more than US$1 billion, covers a total of 48 locations across five provinces.
(Macao News)
