Mozambique's HCB plans new power station
HCB CEO Paulo Muxanga told Reuters in an exclusive interview the company had exhausted the maximum capacity of power it could produce from its generators on the southern bank of the Cahora Bassa river. It is therefore seeking government approval to build additional generators on the northern bank.
"We have proposed to the government to go ahead with the building of new generators or power stations in the northern banks of the river because we have exhausted all our capacity in the southern banks, we are awaiting government approval for that to happen", he said.
HCB, which suffered from decades of neglect and lack of investment, currently provides 60 percent of its power to South Africa's Eskom and 35 percent to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA).
Mozambique consumes the remaining 5 percent and only 15 percent of the country's 20-million people have access to electricity.
The move to build an additional power station is likely to increase Mozambique's capacity to export electricity to other southern African countries affected by a power crisis in the region.
On Sunday, ZESA, the Zimbabwe state power utility, reportedly said it was negotiating with its Mozambican counterparts to get additional supplies following the refurbishment and subsequent increase in generation capacity of the Cahora Bassa power station.
"Yes (ZESA) is negotiating with us, but unfortunately we do not have extra power to sell to neighbouring countries at the moment unless we go to the second phase of building new generators or power stations in the northern banks of the river", Muxanga said.
Cahora Bassa has the potential to generate 14,000 megawatts of power but currently produces 2,075 MW.
Officials say getting it to its maximum capacity would require major investment, which the company has sought from foreign financiers.
