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Under a one-year contract signed on Thursday between EDM and the Botswana Power Corporation, Mozambique’s publicly owned electricity company will provide 100 megawatts of non-firm power to Botswana (BPC).
The capacity agreed to under the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is intended to help meet Botswana’s growing electricity demand. However, EDM’s power supply will be contingent on BPC’s request and the availability of surplus power from the Mozambican grid.
At the signing ceremony in Gaborone, EDM chairperson Marcelino Alberto emphasized the new opportunities for SADC’s energy market that will be created when the new gas-fired power station at Temane, in the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane, begins operations.
President Filipe Nyusi laid the first stone for the construction of this power station in March. The combined cycle Temane power station, fired by Mozambican natural gas, will generate 450 megawatts, making it the largest new source of electricity in Mozambique since independence in 1975.
The electricity will feed the Mozambican power market, and the surplus will be exported. EDM’s strategy is to generate foreign currency for the country through the export of electricity and to consolidate Mozambique’s position as a regional pole for power generation.
This is not the first time EDM has exported electricity to Botswana. It did so between 2003 and mid-2017. And in April 2019, it exported 70 megawatts to Gaborone for a period of five months.
Under a second agreement signed during the state visit to Botswana by President Filipe Nyusi, Mozambique will import annually from Botswana two million doses of vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease.
This agreement also envisages the genetic improvement of Mozambican cattle through artificial insemination, and the training of Mozambican staff at Botswanan universities in the areas of livestock production and meat inspection.
Th9e Mozambican Deputy Agriculture Minister, Olegário Banze, told Radio Mozambique “This cooperation could increase production and productivity in the two countries, and meet the demands of the market”.
Banze said that urban dietary habits “increasingly require more animal protein”.
