Cyclone: 120 million dollars required for electricity

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Cyclone: 120 million dollars required for electricity

6:52 CAT | 18 Apr 2019

File photo: O País

The Mozambican publicly owned electricity company EDM estimates that the definitive restoration of the electricity grid to those parts of the central provinces ravaged by cyclone Idai in mid-March will cost 120 million US dollars.
EDM spokesperson Luis Amado told reporters on Wednesday that so far EDM has invested 21 million dollars for the preliminary or temporary restoration of the grid to supply about 50 per cent of the power provided by EDM under normal circumstances.

Amado said that a key action in the temporary restoration of the grid was to ensure that the main sub-station in the city of Beira was functioning again. Currently the sub-station is working at 60 per cent of its capacity, which allows it to supply power to such key facilities as the Beira water pumping station, and the waste water treatment station.

“Right now, work is continuing on the Beira low voltage network”, he added, “and we hope that in two months Beira will reach normal power consumption and all EDM clients in the city will have electricity”.
Amado said EDM has teams working to repair the grid in Buzi district, much of which was under water in March.

This depends on restoring the Guara-Guara substation to working order. There are other EDM teams working on the connections to Chibabava district (in Sofala province) and to Machaze and Mossurize (in Manica). There are still serious problems of road access to all these areas.

Amado was not sure when the repairs would be complete. The money for restoring the power supply would have to be mobilised by the government and is partners, and that could be a long term process.

One certainty is that the cyclone has seriously damaged any chance of EDM meetings its target for 200,000 new connections this year in the central provinces.

Source: AIM