The Biópio Photovoltaic Plant, with more than 500 thousand solar panels, in Benguela, supplies 10 provinces in Angola

More than 500 thousand solar panels, installed in the commune of Biópio, province of Benguela, generate 144.9 megawatts and benefit almost one million Angolans, an investment of 500 million dollars for a set of seven plants.

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, from 2022, the central and northern regional system.
The official stressed that the government is betting on diversifying its energy matrix, with a focus on clean energy, highlighting the existence of hydroelectric plants “with a lot of energy generation capacity”, such as the large dams of Laúca, Kapanda, Cambambe and briefly Caculo Cabaça, in addition to large solar plants.

The director of the Biopio Photovoltaic Center admitted that there are still communities, especially rural ones, without access to energy, but the government has been investing in the installation of other plants with a view to covering the deficit in those localities.

“We are inserted in the 220 kilovolt network, in the central region and the central region network, where ten provinces are interconnected, which are supplied with energy from clean water as well as from solar energy plants,” he stressed.

There are predictions that soon, according to Nilton de Carvalho, all this energy from the central region will be interconnected to the line of the southern region “and in the future it could be that of the east.”

“It is a line that can be awarded to the entire country,” he stressed.

The Biopio 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, in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy and Water.

According to the representative of Sun Africa at the Coordination Conference for Support to the Lobito Corridor, held on Wednesday in Benguela, at the initiative of Power Africa, the project provides for the implementation of seven solar plants.

“It was external financing from SEK, a Swedish export credit agency, worth about 500 million dollars (447.8 million euros) 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 Biopio plant, other needs have already been identified, in more remote areas, by the Angolan government.

“We were also asked to develop mini-grids in localities in the country that are not yet interconnected by the national system, in order to meet the needs more quickly,” he said.

According to Eguinilson da Silva, this project is close to the execution phase with the recently approved financing of 1.6 billion dollars (1.4 billion euros), by the US EximBank, for the installation of 65 mini-grids in the south of the country, with an installed capacity of 220 megawatts.

In Angola, Sun Africa already has projects developed in the provinces of Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul and Moxico.