Mozambique Endorses $80-Billion Energy Transition Strategy

Mozambique has approved an energy transition strategy worth $80 billion, seeking to raise funding from wealthy nations to boost the share of renewables and reduce fossil fuels use in its energy mix.

The detailed plan will be unveiled by President Filipe Nyusi at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai later this week, Mozambique said in a statement to Bloomberg.

The first measures of the strategy through 2050 include adding 2 gigawatts (GW) of hydropower generation capacity by 2030 and bolstering and expanding the grid to accommodate more renewable energy sources.

The African country has one of the largest untapped coal reserves in the world, and a lot of natural gas offshore, as well as copper and graphite, which are key materials for the energy transition.

“We are still fine tuning the document and hope to publicly release it later this week,” Pedro Simao, who is a special advisor to the minister of energy, told Reuters on Monday.

Mozambique is the latest developing country looking to win funding from wealthy countries to help it through the energy transition.

Last week, Indonesia launched its $20-billion renewable energy plan to cut emissions and boost the share of renewables in its energy mix.

At the end of last year, Indonesia, the world’s top coal exporter and heavily reliant on coal for power generation, signed an agreement to launch a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) co-led by the U.S. and Japan and including Canada, Denmark, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

Under the partnership, Indonesia will target to have renewable energy generation accounting for at least 34% of all power generation by 2030, which would roughly double the total renewables deployment over the course of this decade compared to current plans.

Indonesia needs billions of U.S. dollars in investment to shift away from coal the country doesn’t have. The wealthy international partners in the JETP have pledged half of the $20 billion investment while the other half is expected to come from large banks under the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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