Abstract
Mozambique is endowed with abundant renewable energy resources, but the country is poor in its capability to exploit and use them. Currently, the country faces many challenges with regard to access and quality of energy and there is serious desertification problem in rural areas. About 67% of population live and work in rural areas and 80% of the energy used in the country is in the form of traditional biomass. This leads to serious negative environmental and health impacts. Understanding where the opportunities for tapping this wealth exist and proper technologies for harnessing renewable energy resources is fundamental for economic growth and social development. Thus, this work presents an overview of Mozambique energy situation and the potential of renewable energy resources with focus on four major sources, namely: solar, hydro, wind and biomass. Methodologically, the study uses a comprehensive literature review, several national policy frameworks and statistical data from various official sources. Although the country has enormous potential in renewable energy source, more than 23.000 GW, electricity access rate stands at approximately 40%. Also, the country has one of the highest energy costs in Sub-Saharan as proportion of income. In addition, the legislative framework for energy sector is considered to be largely in place, but implementation and enforcement of the regulatory regime appear to lag behind considerably due to lack of financial resources. Keywords: renewable energy, biomass, wind, hydropower, solar, climate change DOI: 10.7176/JETP/11-2-04 Publication date: March 31 st 2021
Highlights
Mozambique is richly endowed with renewable and non-renewable energy resources
National energy balance shows that solar and wind energy despite significant potential and significant efforts made over the past years to develop them, their potential remains almost entirely untapped. This is due to annual flows less than 0.05 PJ, which were not included in the national energy balance. Tapping into these resources would help the country meet the energy challenge, to those underserved by grids in rural areas
It is clear that Mozambique is endowed with abundant, high quality renewable energy resources, but still has low rate of electricity consumption per capita, about 443 kWh
Summary
Mozambique is richly endowed with renewable and non-renewable energy resources. The country has approximately 29.5 million inhabitants, about 67% live in rural areas - mainly along its 2700 km coastline - and electricity access rate is estimated at 40%, with urban access rates estimated at 67% and rural access rates estimated at a mere 27% (INE, 2018 and Goodrich, 2020). According to the Ministry of Energy (2018), FUNAE has represented in its portfolio 178 development projects, in mini solar grids, totaling the generation of 8.7 MW, which allows the connection of 24 thousand families across the country, and 60 locations with potential to install 2 thousand individual systems. In Mozambique, the challenge has been to determine what regulatory frameworks and incentives schemes are necessary to implement a wide scale expansion of electricity generating capacity, both on-grid and off-grid renewable energy to ensure that the country receives the most benefit from the exploitation of its natural resources. Within the scope of the national electrification strategy, which provides for various energy solutions in the country, four main players are indicated, where the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy (MIRENE) appears as the main coordinator, the energy regulatory authority (ARENE), EDM and FUNAE, acting directly in the implementation process, seeking greater involvement of the private sector (Strategic Plan 2018). For projects above 1 MW, under the responsibility of FUNAE, the possibility of being connected to the national grid in the future should be considered (Strategic Plan 2018)
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