Mozambique's national power company, Electricidade de Moçambique, has awarded Black & Veatch a contract funded under a US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) grant to study the feasibility of using the lower Lurio river in northern Mozambique as a hydro power source.

Lurio_River

Black & Veatch has started work on the project and is currently evaluating three schemes to optimise the utilisation of the river in the generation of power.

USTDA, a federal foreign assistance agency, is funding the study for Electricidade de Moçambique to support the development of power sources for continued economic growth. At present, only 5 to 10% of the rural population of Mozambique has access to electricity.

The Lurio river has a total catchment area of 60,800km2 and a mean annual flow of approximately 227m3/sec. The three schemes under study include the construction of a 7km long dam to regulate the flow of the Lurio river near the town of Ocua and to produce 65MW. The programme also includes the evaluation of two 120MW power plants downstream of the dam – one at the site of a natural waterfall and another site 25km from the mouth of the river at the Indian Ocean.

The Lurio river runs for about 500km from the southwest in Mozambique toward the coast to the northeast, arriving at the Indian Ocean at Lurio, about 40km south of Pemba.


View of the Lurio river


View of the Lurio river Lurio