Strengthened cooperation with the US Chamber of Commerce will make it possible to achieve the goal of more than 1.7 million household connections and production units by 2027, and to realise a 50 percent electrification rate.
The projection should also guarantee a surplus to export to neighbouring countries with high demand, the Minister of Energy and Water said on Friday in Luanda.
João Baptista Borges was speaking at the end of the signing ceremony for the cooperation protocol between the Ministry of Energy and Water and AmCham Angola. The co-operation agreement provides for funding to be sought from the United States for the implementation of renewable energy projects from hydroelectric, photovoltaic and green hydrogen sources in various locations across the country. The emphasis is on the south of the country, specifically in the provinces of Cunene, Namibe, Cuando Cubango and Huíla. In the first phase, 2.1 billion dollars will be disbursed by the US company Sun Africa.
The protocol was initialled by the director of MINEA’s Planning and Statistics Study Office (GEPE), José Salgueiro, and the executive director of AmCham Angola, Neil David Breslin, in the presence of senior government figures, including Minister João Baptista Borges and the Secretaries of State for Mineral Resources and the Environment, as well as the chargé d’affaires of the US Embassy in Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Minister João Baptista Borges began by emphasising that the United States-Angola Chamber of Commerce plays an important role in the new panorama of cooperation, especially in the field of energy, and that the protocol, which has now been signed, has the competence and space to act in the search for financing for investments. The focus, he said, is on realising the projects that will henceforth be designed, taking into account Angola’s main priorities in the electricity sector. The same priorities have already been pointed out by the Head of the Executive Branch, based on the expansion of the transmission system, so as to ‘not only dispose of the existing surplus capacity, but also increase supply with the construction of new facilities and production capacities’.
Source: Jornal de Angola
