Developing a National Smart Grid Strategy in Mozambique

Developing a National Smart Grid Strategy in Mozambique: A Roadmap for Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) and Lessons for Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper presents a comprehensive smart grid maturity assessment and implementation roadmap developed in 2018 for Mozambique’s national utility, Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM). The structured programme outlines six key stages — maturity assessment across eight functional areas, strategy and roadmap development, cost-benefit analysis, investment and business model design, pilot trials, and mass deployment — to transform the national grid into a smarter, more resilient, and sustainable system.

Key benefits include reduced costs of supply, improved reliability, technical and non-technical loss reduction, support for distributed generation and micro-grids, and enhanced renewable energy integration. Updated for academic archiving in 2026, the roadmap remains highly relevant amid falling smart-grid technology costs, rapid renewable growth, and Africa’s energy transition goals.

This case study provides a practical, context-specific framework and transferable lessons for other utilities across Sub-Saharan Africa facing similar challenges of reliability, loss reduction, and renewable integration.