In an interview with Lusa, Elisabete Alves, the president of the group of Portuguese origin, which is about to inaugurate one of the largest photovoltaic parks in Africa in Benguela, spoke about the new bet, explaining that the objective is to respond to the challenges of drought and agriculture.
"Our 'core business' has been infrastructure, especially roads, but we want to start the development of the water area, in the sense of finding solutions to combat drought and boost the agricultural capacity of the land, namely irrigation networks, but also in the treatment and supply of water", he declared.
The objective is "to maintain the roads, continue to invest in energy – which has been going very well – and start a new area that involves irrigation solutions".
The Biópio (Benguela) solar park, which is expected to open later this month, was MCA's first renewable energy project and Elisabete Alves describes the experience as "enriching", not only for the technological issue and for involving a new business area, but also because it was developed in the midst of a pandemic, presenting even greater challenges.
MCA will continue its photovoltaic solar projects in Angola, but this time through micro and mini-grid systems, using battery storage, to bring energy to the most isolated areas of the east and center of the country (Moxico, Lunda Norte , Lunda Sul, Malanje and Bié), which are not connected to the national grid.
These are 48 systems with varying powers, between less than 1 megawatt and 30 megawatts, which involve a contract in excess of one billion euros. The financing will be provided by the German export credit agency, Euler-Hermes.
According to Elisabete Alves, the MCA is still finalizing the issues related to financing to move on to the development of the execution project and start with the construction, which should happen later this year, with an execution period of three years.
The MCA president was optimistic about Angola's future, not only in the area of renewable energy, namely photovoltaic solar "which has tremendous potential", but also in terms of increasing the country's agricultural potential.
