According to the director of the Biópio Photovoltaic Center, Nilton de Carvalho, the solar panels occupy an area of 360 hectares and generate 144.9 megawatts of energy, reinforcing, since 2022, the central and northern regional system.
The official stressed that the Government is committed to diversifying its energy matrix, with a focus on clean energy, highlighting the existence of hydro plants "with a lot of energy generation power", such as the large dams of Laúca, Kapanda, Cambambe and soon from Caculo Cabaça, in addition to the large solar plants.
The director of the Biópio Photovoltaic Center admitted that there are still communities, especially rural areas, without access to energy, but the Government has been investing to set up other plants with a view to making up for the deficit in these locations.
"We are inserted in the 220 kilovolt network, in the central region and central region network, where ten provinces are interconnected, which are supplied both with clean hydro energy, as well as solar plants", he highlighted.
There are predictions for soon, according to Nilton de Carvalho, for all this energy from the central region to be interconnected to the southern region line "and in the future it could be the east".
"It's a line that could be awarded to the entire country", he stressed.
The Biópio Photovoltaic Plant was a project developed by Sun Africa, a multinational from the United States of America focused on renewable energy solutions, present in Angola since 2018, working in partnership with the Ministry of Energy and Water.
According to the Sun Africa representative at the Conference on the Coordination of Support for the Lobito Corridor, held on Wednesday in Benguela, an initiative of Power Africa, the project envisages the implementation of seven solar plants.
"It was external financing from SEK, a Swedish export credit agency, worth around US$500 million for a set of seven plants, totaling 370 megawatts," said Eguinilson da Silva.
Eguinilson da Silva stressed that given the success achieved in the development of this Biópio plant, other needs have already been identified, in more remote areas, by the Government.
"We were also asked about the need to develop mini-grids for locations around the country, which are not yet interconnected by the national system, to meet needs more quickly", he stressed.
According to Eguinilson da Silva, this project is close to the execution phase with the recently approved financing of US$ 1.6 billion by EximBank of the USA, for the installation of 65 mini-grids in the south of the country, with a capacity installed capacity of 220 megawatts.
In Angola, Sun Africa already has projects developed in the provinces of Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul and Moxico.
