The delay in construction due to tropical storm Filipo has postponed the start-up of a gas-fired power plant in southern Mozambique, scheduled for the end of 2024, to the middle of this year, an official source said this Friday.
The project manager for the Temane Power Plant (CTT), Eucides Dgedge, explained to Lusa that the passage of that storm, between 11 and 12 March, through Inhassoro, in the province of Inhambane, resulted in "delays in the work and consequently in the postponement of the commissioning of CTT", particularly after the destruction of 50% of the temporary support dock.
Something that made it impossible to "transport the remaining boilers" and caused the barge and tugboat to run aground in an area 20 kilometres from the temporary dock, "thus resulting in delays in the work and consequently in the postponement of the commissioning", he added.
"Commissioning is expected to begin between the second and third quarters of 2025 and the new operational start-up date for the plant is February 2, 2026," explained Eucides Dgedge.
Eletricidade de Moçambique (EDM), which is implementing the CTT, together with the other partners, previously announced that the plant should begin commercial operations in January 2025.
Therefore, the postponement of commissioning results, in practice, in the delay of the commercial operation date, which is now February 2026.
"This consequently impacts the start of operations of the two projects that are linked to the CTT project, namely the TTP [Temane Transition Project, acronym in English] and the PSA [Natural Gas Production and Sharing Project]," he concluded.
The CTT is budgeted at US$650 million (€595.2 million) and the Mozambican government expects the project to increase the country's installed energy production capacity by around 16%, benefiting around 1.5 million families, under the Universal Energy Access Programme, by 2030.
According to the National Institute of Meteorology, severe tropical storm Filipo entered the continent on 12 March, through the district of Inhassoro, heading southwest, namely Gaza and Maputo, with wind gusts of up to 120 kilometres per hour.
Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by global climate change, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.
