Cafunfo — The MCA company, responsible for the construction of the solar power plant in the municipality of Cafunfo, Lunda-Norte province, guaranteed on Friday that the project, which has a physical execution rate above 75 percent, will be completed and delivered in July of this year, the date stipulated in the contract.
According to the schedule presented by the Minister of Energy and Water, who has been working in Lunda-Norte since Thursday, production tests will begin at the end of February, and currently the buildings that will house the monitoring rooms and the technical networks for energy and water are being assembled, as well as the installation of the medium-voltage transmission network.
The minister expressed satisfaction with the degree of physical execution of the contract, encouraging the contractor to continue with the same momentum.
Under construction since November 2023, as part of the Rural Electrification Program, the park has 72,000 solar panels that will have the capacity to produce 41.4 megawatts, plus 111.45 MW stored in batteries for nighttime production.
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The project, budgeted at one billion Euros will allow 29,150 household connections in the prepaid system.
It is part of the Angola 2025 Plan strategy, defined by the Angolan government, which aims to bring clean electricity to urban and rural areas through the expansion of the national electricity grid and the construction of photovoltaic parks, transforming the country into a prosperous, modern one with increasing integration into the world and regional economy.
The Angolan State has said intends to make a positive environmental contribution by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which are currently between 4.2 and 8.0 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Angola is a place with distinct conditions for the use of solar energy, with an average annual global horizontal radiation of between 1,370 and 2,100 kilowatts per square meter per year (kWh/m2/year).
The most suitable technology to take advantage of solar resources is the production of electricity through photovoltaic systems, which is the fastest to install (less than 1 year) and has the lowest maintenance cost, and which has gradually become less expensive, giving greater meaning to small/medium-sized and decentralized solutions.
Currently, the province of Lunda-Norte has 76.19 megawatts of electricity available, with 27 from the Luachimo hydroelectric dam, 42 from the Dundo thermal power plants and 7.19 from the Lucapa photovoltaic plant.
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