Maputo, July 16, 2025 (Lusa) - Mozambique’s Hidroelétrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), the country’s largest electricity producer and one of the main dams in Africa, has hired the Austrian company Andritz to rehabilitate its infrastructure, increasing electricity production by 4%, officials announced on Wednesday.
The Austrian company issued a statement indicating that the hydroelectric company had awarded Andritz the contract to rehabilitate the plant, in a project that “aims to increase the efficiency, reliability, availability and maintenance of the infrastructure,” in which capacity will increase by 4% to 433 megawatts for each generator group.
“Andritz will supply five new state-of-the-art 480 megavolt-ampere generators, five new Francis turbine rotors, control and protection systems and hydromechanical structures,” the statement added, noting that the contract includes “the manufacture and supply of high-efficiency equipment, as well as installation, testing and commissioning at the project site.”
The Austrian company also said that the hydroelectric plant’s generating units will be replaced one by one, in phases, with guarantees of “stable and constant” operation of the infrastructure in the continuous generation of energy.
Andritz, founded in 1852 and headquartered in Austria, specialises in the supply of equipment for the energy sector, including the provision of services and digital solutions, and the environment, among other products, as stated in the same press release.
On 21 May 2025, Lusa reported that electricity production in Mozambique is expected to decrease by 1.3% in 2025 due to maintenance work at the Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric Plant, according to official government data.
As a result, Mozambique is expected to produce 19,197.8 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity this year, with 15,504.4 GWh guaranteed by HCB in the central province of Tete, representing a 4.1% decrease compared to 2024 and the smallest figure in four years.
Overall, electricity production from hydro sources, including the Cahora Bassa dam, is expected to reduce by 4.1% this year. In comparison, thermal power plants will boost electricity production by 17.6%, and almost half of the increase will come from the CTRG natural gas plant, which will generate 1,196.3 gigawatt-hours in 2025, 7.4% more than in 2024.
The same document indicates that production at solar parks in Mozambique is expected to decline by 5.8% to 95.5 gigawatt-hours this year.
HCB is a private limited company, 85% owned by the state-owned Companhia Elétrica do Zambeze and 7.5% by the Portuguese company Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN). The company owns 3.5% of its own shares, while Mozambican citizens, companies and institutions hold the remaining 4%.
The Cahora Bassa reservoir is the fourth largest in Africa, employing almost 800 workers, and is one of the largest electricity producers in southern Africa, supplying neighbouring countries.
The dam is located in a narrow gorge of the Zambezi River, and it was constructed between 1969 and June 1, 1974, during the Portuguese colonial period. Commercial operation began in 1977, with the transmission of the first 960 megawatts produced by three generators, compared to the current installed capacity of 2,075 megawatts.
HCB already plans to reactivate the project for the new power plant in the north, given the growing demand for electricity in the region.
PME/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
