Lobito - The photovoltaic plants of Biópio and Baía Farta, in the province of Benguela, are operational and serve as an alternative sources of supplying energy whenever there is an interruption in the system, the president of the Board of Directors of the PRODEL, Pedro Afonso, said Saturday.
During a visit to check the technical status of the Biópio photovoltaic plant, in the municipality of Catumbela, Pedro Afonso explained that maintenance of the transport lines takes an average of seven hours to replace the system's insulator chain.
To avoid prolonged periods without electricity, these backup plants play a fundamental role.
With this clarification, Pedro Afonso dissipated rumors that the photovoltaic plants built in Lobito and Baia Farta are not operational.
Asked about the amount of energy injected by both plants into the interconnected system, he stated that Biópio has a capacity of 188 megawatts, while Baia Farta has around 90 MW.
Referring to the energy 'blackouts' that are still occurring in the province, he explained that there are several factors, but that the engineering teams are studying to find solutions to solve the problem.
'The aim now is to reduce as much as possible the time it takes to interrupt the population's energy supply', he stated.
According to the PRODEL manager, the installed capacity of the national network is still insufficient to meet demand.
He recalled that the energy supplied in the recent past was mainly from thermal sources.
Regarding this aspect, he reported that the interruptions were mostly caused by the obsolete state of those plants, therefore, there was a need to reinforce them within the scope of the National Energy Security Plan.
However, he mentioned that thermal plants have not been completely discarded, so that, in 'severe cases', there are always alternatives.
The energy transition began between 2016 and 2017 and there were investments in increasing production capacity to facilitate compliance with maintenance plans.
'Benguela has been fed by the National Transport Network, in the interconnected system, which includes ten provinces', he stated .TC /CRB/DOJ
