More news on the Mphanda Nkuwa hydroelectric project in Mozambique. The consortium chosen to build the dam has signed two agreements with the Mozambican authorities. TotalEnergies, Électricité de France (EDF) and Sumitomo Corporation have signed a framework agreement with the Mozambican Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MIREME) and the state-owned Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM), prefiguring “the future concession contract”.
The other agreement concerns joint development with the Gabinete de Implementação do Projecto Hidroeléctrico de Mphanda Nkuwa (GMNK), EDM and Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB). As a result, the ad hoc company will be 40% owned by the French company EDF, 30% by its compatriot TotalEnergies and 30% by the Japanese investment company Sumitomo. The remaining 30% is split between EDM and HCB.
New environmental and social impact studies
According to TotalEnergies, “the next stage of the project will be to carry out additional studies, the results of which will make it possible to define the best solutions in terms of environmental and social impact, while guaranteeing the technical and financial viability of the project”. Overall, the Mozambican authorities are planning to build a hydroelectric dam on the Zambezi River, in the Marara district. Its 1,500 MW power station will be located 60 km downstream of the Cahora Bassa dam, which has a capacity of 2,075 MW.
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The reservoir will be located 70 km upstream of the town of Tete, the capital of the province of the same name. A transmission system comprising 1,300 km of 550 kV high-voltage direct current line will also be built between Cataxia and the Mozambican capital Maputo. According to TotalEnergies, the Mphanda Nkuwa hydropower scheme would more than halve the country’s electricity generation capacity (3,001 MW, according to Power Africa) and could supply more than 3 million homes in Mozambique and neighbouring countries, “thereby promoting socio-economic growth in Southern Africa”.
Implementation of this mega-project will require an investment of $5 billion. Mphanda Nkuwa is already supported by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group. In June 2023, the European Investment Bank (EIB) pledged to contribute $500 million to the implementation of the project.
Jean Marie Takouleu