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What seven years of off-grid market building taught us, and what
Mozambique's Energy Transition Strategy needs next.
You can switch at any time from the top bar.
The headline results, the five themes of this report, and who has to act.
Mozambique's electrification rate rose from 34% to 66.4% between 2019 and 2025. This effort was led by the government and supported by many development partners and programmes, with on-grid connections driving most of the growth. BRILHO was a major contributor to the off-grid portion of that progress, working on supply, demand, and the enabling environment at the same time. Going forward, the country must continue accelerating progress in order to deliver on the ambitions of its Energy Transition Strategy.
This report has three parts. Part 1 sets out the energy access landscape and the ETS. Part 2 draws lessons from BRILHO under five themes. Part 3 says who needs to act.
There were few companies, little finance, and no clear regulatory framework. Only 34% of Mozambicans had electricity. Access ranged from 33.8% in Cabo Delgado to 96.6% in Maputo (2020).
Some progress had been made: 40,000 solar home systems had been deployed by 2019, and 6.2 MW of mini-grid capacity across 76 sites by 2020. Despite this, concessioning, licensing, tariffs, interconnection, and grid arrival remained uncertain for the private sector. The off-grid systems RISE score was 33, and the mini-grid score 23.
Between 2019 and 2026 the programme reached 950,000+ households, well past its 639,000 target: 513,000+ through solar home systems and mini-grids, and 437,000+ through improved cooking.
It mobilised £59 million of external financing, past a £40 million milestone, supported 24 companies, gave 66,000+ businesses access to energy, and supported 2,600 full-time-equivalent jobs.
This was a national achievement. The government drove a large expansion of on-grid electrification, and other access programmes funded by development partners ran alongside BRILHO in the same period.
The national electrification rate reached 66.4%, 895,409 solar home systems had been deployed, and by 2023 the RISE scores had reached 64 for mini-grids, up from 23 in 2019, and 100 for off-grid systems, up from 33.
Sources: BRILHO Evaluation Report; BRILHO programme reporting; ALER and AMER, Briefing Renewables in Mozambique 2025; 60 Decibels, Lean Data Insights for SNV BRILHO, Round 1 (March 2023).
The evidence BRILHO generated points to four needs for the next phase.
This report is anchored in Mozambique's Energy Transition Strategy (ETS). It centres around five themes, derived from the 15 fundamental principles of the ETS. Scroll through each theme to review relevant lessons learned from BRILHO, what is needed in the next phase, and who has to act.
Each theme asks the same three questions. What did BRILHO's experience show? What does the next phase require? Who needs to act?
Policy work had traction because it was tied to a live company pipeline. The framework now exists, but approval has not yet translated into implementation.
Grants and results-based financing moved product and drew in co-financing. They did not produce companies able to independently raise commercial capital.
Verified sales did not equal sustained access. Functionality, repayment, and active use were not systematically tracked.
Gains depended on technical fit, seasonal payment design, and local repair.
GESI became meaningful only through later adaptation, and benefits accrued largely within existing gender roles.
Sources: BRILHO Evaluation Report; Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050; BRILHO programme reporting.
This report's recommendations translate into calls to action for financing partners, government, and the private sector.
The full report covers the energy access landscape, the evidence behind each theme, and every lesson for the Energy Transition Strategy.
Part 1 introduces Mozambique's Energy Transition Strategy (ETS), summarises the structure and achievements of the BRILHO programme, and explains why BRILHO matters for closing the remaining access gap.
Up from 34% in 2019.
Up from US$95 million in 2019, mainly for electricity grids, renewable energy, and policy support.
436,000 new connections in 2025. New grid connections grew by an average of 17.5% a year from 2019 to 2025.
Up from 40,000 by 2019.
Across the national market.
The 2025 edition of ALER and AMER's Briefing Renewables in Mozambique was the first to report the number of cookstoves deployed, so no earlier figure is available.
11.7 MW across 113 sites (95 in operation), up from 6.2 MW across 76 sites in 2020.
*Estimated from other reported metrics. EDM recorded 3.6 million prepayment meters in 2024 and added a further 436,000 connections in 2025; national electrification reached 66.4%, of which roughly 56 percentage points were on-grid.
Sources: ALER and AMER, Briefing Renewables in Mozambique 2025 and 2021; Mozambique National Energy Compact (2025).
Electrification rate by province, 2020 and 2024. The map plays through both years; choose a view to stop it, and hover over or tap a province for its figures.
Sources: ALER and AMER, Briefing Renewables in Mozambique 2025 and 2021. National rates: MIREME, EDM, and FUNAE. Boundaries: Mozambique admin1 (OCHA/INE).
Electrification rose from 34% to 66.4% between 2019 and 2025, with on-grid connections carrying most of the growth. Reaching the 2030 ambitions will take more.
The electrification rate was 34%. That year Mozambique added 208,000 new connections: 166,000 on the grid and 42,000 off it.
Annual new connections nearly tripled, from 208,000 in 2019 to 591,000 in 2024.
The rate reached 66.4%. Over seven years Mozambique added 3.06 million new connections.
Off-grid solutions provided 760,000 of those connections (25%). Their share of each year's new connections ranged from 20% to 30%.
Off-grid connections peaked at 179,000 in 2024, then fell to 122,000 in 2025.
The target is 100% electricity access by 2030. That requires about 440,000 new grid connections every year. In 2025 the grid added 436,000.
*Includes sector needs in generation, transmission, grid rehabilitation, on- and off-grid energy access, clean cooking, and technical assistance to achieve universal access.
Sources: MIREME, EDM, and FUNAE (connections and electrification rate) and EDM (installed capacity), reproduced in ALER and AMER, Briefing Renewables in Mozambique 2025.
A shift from primary energy and thermal generation to renewable sources.
Industrial growth that uses Mozambique's clean, cheap energy as a competitive advantage.
Clean electricity and cooking for all, and widespread access to energy and technology in rural agriculture.
From oil and private vehicles to biofuels, electric and gas vehicles, and public transport.
Source: Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050.
In 2020, 56% of households depended on primary energy sources. The ETS estimates that its transition path closes that gap by 2030, eight years sooner than business as usual. It leans mainly on a scale-up of grid connections.
Without the transition, households still depend on primary sources until 2038, and the grid reaches only 70.6% of households by 2050.
Under the transition scenario, 19% of households get power from mini-grids and 12% from solar home systems in 2030. Mini-grids would need a very significant scale-up to reach this ambition. As Part 2 shows, they have not yet reached a commercial level of deployment.
That compares with 70.6% under business as usual. Only 9.4% still rely on mini-grids and SHS, and 40–60% of households adopt LPG for cooking.
Source: Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050 (household access scenarios).
The principles govern how the transition should be done. Scroll to see where BRILHO's results land.
The ETS sets fifteen principles for the transition, from economic growth without added user costs to stakeholder consultation and dialogue.
950,000+ households reached, against a 639,000 target: 4.8 million people.
437,000+ households received improved cooking solutions. 780,000 stoves were sold from 2021 to 2025, 46% of them BRILHO-supported. Local cookstove factories were established and upgraded.
66,000+ businesses reached, against a 46,000 target, and 2,600 full-time-equivalent jobs supported.
24 companies supported across SHS, ICS, mini-grids, and PUE. Eleven were still operating 12 months after support.
BRILHO supported the country's first electric-vehicle project: 250 EVs and three charging stations.
BRILHO unlocked 55% of quality-verified SHS sales from 2020 to 2025. Users reported lower fuel costs, less smoke, and faster cooking.
£59 million in private finance mobilised, past the £40 million milestone. New entrants supported included Dynamiss, ENGIE, Epsilon, Ignite, Sun King, Burn, Community Carbon, RVESol, Equatorial, MozCarbon, and Yazu.
BRILHO contributed to off-grid regulatory instruments and to ARENE's capacity, and helped establish working groups that coordinate off-grid programmes and inform policy. From 2019 to 2023 the off-grid systems RISE score rose from 33 to 100, and the mini-grid score from 23 to 64.
Mini-grid rules now cover licensing and tariff-setting.
A Gender Seal white paper and indicator framework were developed. Gender policies, safeguarding plans, and GESI-linked RBF are now in company systems.
BRILHO convened companies, technical partners, and public actors on GESI, and its research fed public and private decisions.
BRILHO's results map to ten principles. The other five (natural gas, coal, green industrialisation, household tariffs, and raw materials) sit outside what the programme directly supported.
Sources: BRILHO programme reporting; Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO. Principles as numbered in the ETS 2023–2050.
Customer surveys powerfully illustrate what changed when they got modern energy.
Of users accessed this type of energy product for the first time.
Of users could not easily find a good alternative.
Said their quality of life improved; 73% said it improved "very much".
Said their sense of safety at home or in their business improved "very much".
Experienced a challenge with their product, against a 31% benchmark. Of those, 56% said it had not been resolved.
Source: 60 Decibels, SNV BRILHO Programme Lean Data Insights Aggregate Report: Round 2, Nov 2023, 401 customers of 13 portfolio companies.
Savings reported by users, in US dollars, and what they spent them on.
Source: 2023 BRILHO survey report. Savings and their uses are self-reported by users; for cookstoves, users could name more than one use. US$ values use the 2023 average exchange rate of 63.89 MZN per US$ (World Bank, official exchange rate, 2023 period average).
My life has changed as I used to take an average of 3 to 4 hours to prepare meals, but with the stove, that time reduced to an average of 1 hour and 30 minutes, saving me money and time.
Cookstove customer · 60 Decibels, Round 1 (March 2023)
Before, my life was just to arrive at 5pm for dinner and sleep, but now, after 5pm, I can get ahead on some work that I would do in the morning.
Solar home system customer · 60 Decibels, Round 1 (March 2023)
BRILHO ran from 2019 to 2026. It was designed to catalyse Mozambique's off-grid energy market, and to improve and increase energy access for people and businesses.
BRILHO tackled all three market dimensions together, through four components with technical assistance running across them.
The MDF de-risked businesses through results-based financing, catalytic grants, and technical assistance.
BRILHO delivered strategic data and insights to inform public and private decision makers.
BRILHO developed and strengthened an off-grid energy policy framework that enables investment and a sustainable market.
BRILHO raised awareness among off-grid Mozambicans of their options and of the benefits of modern renewable energy.
Technical assistance ran through every component: company systems, GESI, and investment readiness. Because BRILHO worked on multiple fronts, its lessons apply holistically to ETS Pillar 3. Part 2 draws these lessons.
Sources: Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO; BRILHO programme reporting.
Insights from BRILHO to guide the ETS, grouped under five themes drawn from the ETS's fifteen fundamental principles.
Select a theme to jump to it.
Source: Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050 (page 6).
MIREME, ARENE, and FUNAE established a regulatory framework for off-grid energy access, with contributions from the BRILHO programme.
In 2019 Mozambique scored 23 out of 100 on the World Bank's RISE mini-grids framework, 33 for off-grid systems, and 47 for electrification governance and planning. Concessioning, licensing, tariffs, interconnection, and grid arrival were uncertain for the private sector.
The decree set the framework for supplying off-grid energy, covering mini-grids up to 10 MW and isolated energy services, including SHS and ICS. Private ownership, concessions, cost-reflective tariffs, and interconnection all became possible for the first time.
In 2022, ARENE set the tariffs that apply to mini-grids (Normative Resolution No. 1/ARENE-CA/2022) and defined technical and safety standards for off-grid generation and supply, including energy and equipment quality (Normative Resolution No. 3/ARENE/2022).
In 2023, Ministerial Decree No. 68/2023 set the criteria for awarding mini-grid concessions.
Between 2019 and 2023, the mini-grids framework score rose from 23 to 64, and the off-grid systems framework from 33 to a full 100. Electrification governance and planning rose from 47 to 56.
By 2023, 17 major support programmes for off-grid energy had €216 million of funding available. Twelve supported mini-grids, eight supported solar home systems, and eight supported improved cookstoves.
Programmes: BGFA, BRILHO, ERC, ElectriFI MZ, EnDev, GET.invest, GET.transform, Green People's Energy, MCFA, ProEnergia, ProEnergia+, REACT SSA, RERD 2, AMAP, SPEED+, Italy–UNDP Energy Partnership, and TSE4ALLM. Source: ALER and AMER, Briefing Renewables in Mozambique 2023.
ARC Power deployed the country's first privately owned mini-grid in 2023. In 2025, ARENE launched an international competitive tender for private mini-grid concessions: four lots in Nampula Province, totalling up to 3 MW. The same year, FUNAE transferred management of a portfolio of existing public mini-grids to private operators, following a public tender.
Sources: World Bank RISE; Decree 93/2021 and associated regulations; BRILHO programme reporting; Transforming off-grid energy access in Mozambique (2019–2024).
Sources: Decree 93/2021 and associated regulations; draft Carbon Markets Regulation; BRILHO programme reporting.
Six lessons follow. For each: what BRILHO learned, which ETS principles it serves, and the opportunity it points to.
Usable procedures and tariff tools, retained institutional capacity, and fiscal relief that actually reaches companies.
BRILHO leadership participated in an off-grid working group where development partners and programmes shared which companies and activities each was supporting. The aim was to avoid duplication and align efforts towards shared sector goals.
Why it matters · Principles 11 and 15. Cross-sector planning and coordination, anchored in the UIPCE.
BRILHO built institutional capacity with MIREME, ARENE, and FUNAE through regulatory training, secondments, and e-LISEFOR.
Why it matters · Principles 10 and 11. Institutional capacity and shared public off-grid data reduce investment risk, which brings private capital in.
BRILHO linked policy work to a live company pipeline and to finance, technical assistance, and evidence. That gave it practical traction.
Why it matters · Principle 11. Operationalising the off-grid regulations means coordination happens in practice as well as on paper.
BRILHO supported the mini-grid package (ownership, concessions, tariffs, interconnection) and preparations for private mini-grid concessions. It did not reach deployment.
Why it matters · Principle 13. Mini-grid concessions and the progressive adoption of tariffs that reflect real costs.
BRILHO established registration of energy service providers, intended to give SHS companies a route to fiscal incentives.
Why it matters · Principles 2 and 10. Targeted incentives for private providers electrifying remote areas.
Clean cooking scaled through general registration, without a technology-specific regime of its own.
Why it matters · Principles 4 and 11. A clean-cooking regulatory framework and incentives move households off traditional biomass.
Sources: Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO (Recommendations 3, 4, 5, 9, and 10; policy and institutional influence); Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050.
Grants catalysed sales and co-financing, but enterprises are still struggling to become sustainable.
Most of it went into solar home systems.
Mobilised across all technologies.
Behind 55% of quality-verified SHS sales, 2020–2025.
Behind 46% of improved cookstove sales, 2021–2025.
Only one private mini-grid has been deployed.
Sources: BRILHO programme reporting; Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO.
In 2018, 12,791 solar home systems were sold in Mozambique. In 2019, 25,406.
BRILHO-supported sales started in 2020 and reached 135,033 in 2024, 79% of the market that year.
From 2020 to 2025, BRILHO-supported companies sold 55% of all solar home systems.
In 2025, BRILHO-supported sales fell to 70,047, while the rest of the market rose to 123,953. Total sales still reached 194,000.
34,521 supported sales were recorded in 2026 up to August.
The market sold about 44,000 a year until 2020. BRILHO-supported sales began in earnest in 2021, and 780,000 stoves were sold from 2021 to 2025, 46% of them BRILHO-supported.
BRILHO-supported sales reached 103,518, 62% of the market, while total cookstove sales fell 16% to 167,342 as the market for cookstove carbon credits collapsed (see below).
Sources: GOGLA country data (rest of market); BRILHO programme reporting (supported units).
Private mini-grids have not reached deployment at scale, and regulatory delays have been a challenge.
Companies struggle to sustain operations on the market alone. Self-reported examples include an inability to serve off-grid customers without RBF (Epsilon) and a marked drop in sales once RBF ended (ENGIE).
Affordability rests on carbon revenue and continued subsidy. Expanding at fully commercial prices would be extremely difficult without continued support.
Scarce local finance keeps costs high
High costs and taxes keep prices above what users can pay
Weak affordability ties revenue to subsidy timing
Volatile revenue stops companies growing
Scarce local finance keeps costs high. That, plus taxes, keeps prices above what many users can afford. Weak affordability leaves revenue dependent on subsidy timing. Volatile revenue leaves companies unable to scale or sustain themselves.
Local MFIs have little appetite for PAYGo asset finance: it is unfamiliar, their rural presence is limited, and their minimum loan sizes are high.
Local banks largely do not lend to off-grid companies, so firms borrow in hard currency while earning in meticais. With no specialised consumer lender, many companies run the financing themselves.
Most of the target population can afford only US$3–4 a month, against an average price of about US$7.
VAT of 16% on renewable technologies and import duties of 7.5–20% raise prices and mini-grid tariffs. Consumer finance and rural operating costs add more. PAYGo lowers the upfront cost but shifts the risk into repayment.
Sales track the timing of subsidy windows rather than underlying demand, and drop when RBF funding ends.
Many clean-cooking businesses depend on carbon finance as core funding. Carbon prices are volatile, and carbon sales stalled while companies awaited letters of authorisation.
Several companies underperformed or left the market, and the sector is consolidating. Growth has outpaced the systems and staff needed to manage it.
Exits can end service and maintenance. Who repairs a household's SHS if the seller is no longer operating?
Combined sales of solar home systems and improved cookstoves rose from 56,852 in 2018 to 361,342 in 2025.
BRILHO launched in July 2019. The Market Development Fund's first call opened in February 2020 and a second in February 2022. The fund closed to new applications in March 2024.
In 2025 cookstove sales fell 16%. The fund had closed to new applications, but the main driver was the carbon market. In January 2024, a study in Nature Sustainability found that sampled cookstove projects had been issued 9.2 times more credits than an independent best-practice estimate. Demand and prices for cookstove credits from Mozambique and other markets collapsed. The market later recovered as deeper studies followed, but never to its earlier level.
Solar home system sales kept rising, but BRILHO-supported sales halved as the fund wound down.
Sources: GOGLA country data; BRILHO programme reporting; ALER and AMER, Briefing Renewables in Mozambique 2025; Gill-Wiehl, Kammen, and Haya, Pervasive over-crediting from cookstove offset methodologies, Nature Sustainability (2024).
SolarWorks! launches the first PAYGo solar home system offer in the country.
ENGIE leads the market with 24,000 units, 59% of national sales.
BRILHO signs its first solar home system agreements.
Digitech joins.
Uranus Solar and Sun King join.
SolarWorks! peaks at 21,300 BRILHO-supported sales.
SolarWorks!' parent company is declared bankrupt.
Ignite overtakes ENGIE, with 101,000 units and 63% of sales.
Ignite agrees (January) and completes (September) its acquisition of ENGIE Energy Access.
Sun King keeps accelerating, having grown from no sales in 2021 to the third-largest seller by 2024.
MozCarbon overtakes SOGEPAL to lead the market, and holds the lead through 2021.
Burn leads with 59,782 units and Community Carbon is second with 43,070, both from near zero in 2020.
Research in Nature Sustainability finds cookstove projects over-credited about ninefold. MozCarbon and Carbonsink sales roughly halve.
Most cookstove carbon methodologies lose the ICVCM quality label, and Mozambique cannot issue letters of authorisation.
Six lessons on how finance can build a lasting market.
A financing base beyond successive subsidy windows, patient capital, and instruments matched to company maturity.
BRILHO combined RBF, catalytic grants, and technical assistance to tackle delivery, liquidity, and company capability together.
Why it matters · Principles 9 and 10. Affordable, high-quality energy delivered through private-sector participation.
Make sustainability an explicit programme objective and decision criterion from the design stage.
BRILHO mobilised £59 million in reported private finance, largely through co-financing and shareholder contributions.
Why it matters · Principles 1 and 10. A financing ecosystem broader than successive subsidy windows grows the market without adding household costs.
BRILHO provided investment-readiness support and matchmaking, but investment windows seek larger tickets than this market offers. BRILHO is helping establish the first receivables-asset aggregator window in Mozambique.
Why it matters · Principle 10. Private capital enters only where investment risk and barriers are reduced.
BRILHO prepared the regulatory and investment pipeline, but planned mini-grid investment did not translate into deployment at scale.
Why it matters · Principles 1 and 10. Mini-grid scale and viability are built on what productive users earn.
RBF and grants expanded sales, stock, and reach. Credit-management support lifted new-customer utilisation from 66% to 78%.
Why it matters · Principles 2 and 10. Targeted incentives for private providers electrifying remote areas.
BRILHO supported cookstove affordability through RBF and grants alongside carbon revenue, which is central to the price users pay.
Why it matters · Principles 4 and 9. Clean-cooking finance, carbon finance, and PAYGo keep stoves affordable.
Sources: Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO (Recommendations 1, 2, 6, and 8); Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050; BRILHO programme reporting.
BRILHO reached users across all three technologies, and customers reported real gains in cost, time, comfort, and safety.
Sources: BRILHO Evaluation Report (focus groups and user interviews); 60 Decibels, Round 2 (November 2023) (fuel spending and productive use); 2023 BRILHO survey report (savings); SNV productive-use study (August 2025); BRILHO programme reporting; BRILHO midterm report.
BRILHO-backed companies and their customers show two barriers to lasting service: what users can afford, and what providers can sustain.
Among buyers using credit, few consider it a burden.
15% of customers reported an issue with their product, and 56% of them said it had not been resolved. That is better than the industry benchmark of 70%.
Among customers whose challenge was not resolved, against a portfolio average of 72.
Sources: 60 Decibels, SNV BRILHO Programme Lean Data Insights Aggregate Report: Round 2, Nov 2023, 401 customers of 13 portfolio companies; BRILHO Evaluation Report (focus groups and user interviews).
Affordability, repayment, and continued use are critical priorities for universal access.
Five lessons on turning sales into lasting access.
Outcome reporting rather than delivery volumes, local repair capacity, and credit unbundled from the sale.
Verified sales do not equal sustained access: 41% of SHS customers reported falling behind on payments.
Why it matters · Principle 9. The ETS judges affordable, high-quality energy by whether households can keep paying for it.
Growth outpaced operating capacity. Service and spare-parts networks need funding smaller companies lack. Of the 15% of customers reporting a challenge, 56% said it had not been resolved. Skilled labour and training capacity are also short.
Why it matters · Principle 9. High-quality energy means service that keeps working, with repair capacity and spare parts where customers are.
System functionality, repayment, and active use are not systematically tracked, so delivery figures cannot show whether access endured.
Why it matters · Principle 2. Universal access by 2030 is counted in households still served, not units delivered.
Productive use showed the clearest route to incomes that can pay for access. Outcomes depended on technical fit, seasonal payment cycles, and local repair capacity.
Why it matters · Principle 3. Renewables are prioritised where economically viable, and productive use is what makes off-grid systems viable.
Support and finance productive use so that access builds the income that pays for it, with payment schedules aligned to harvests and other income cycles.
BRILHO's flagship report set out game changers that remain unfinished: a sustainability component in the RBF, customer-centric PAYGo 2.0, and splitting asset finance from sales.
Why it matters · Principle 8. Access must not leave households carrying costs they cannot bear.
Sources: Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO; Transforming off-grid energy access in Mozambique (2019–2024); 60 Decibels, Round 1 (March 2023); 60 Decibels, Round 2 (November 2023).
For an off-grid household, economic development means money saved, time freed, and income earned. Each technology delivered a different part of that.
Each technology delivered a different kind of economic gain.
70% of users reported lower weekly spending on lighting and energy, and 39% said it "very much decreased". Households also gained usable hours after dark.
Phone charging made customers and workers easier to reach. With limited productive-use capacity, SHS rarely transformed income-generating activity.
91% reported lower weekly fuel spending, and 52% said it "very much decreased", the highest of any BRILHO technology.
Faster cooking freed time for other tasks, including income-generating work.
Solar irrigation pumps displaced petrol, hired labour, and manual watering. They made dry-season production possible. Production tripled on average for tomato, cabbage, onion, and pepper farmers.
Impact depended on technical fit: pump capacity, crop, plot size, water source, and payment timing.
Drivers of electric tuk-tuks cut fuel costs by MZN 1,230 a day (US$19.3) and needed less maintenance. Solar mills raised annual profit by more than 40%.
The regulatory groundwork was laid (concessions, licensing, tariffs, interconnection), but not deployment. Approval processes, tariff viability, capital requirements, investment risk, and long timelines held it back.
Sources: 60 Decibels, Lean Data Insights for SNV BRILHO, Round 2 (November 2023); Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO; SNV productive-use study (25 August 2025); BRILHO programme reporting.
Farmers saved an average of US$263 (MZN 16,772) per hectare per cycle, roughly US$704–783 (MZN 45,000–50,000) a year at three cycles. One farmer estimated his net farm income tripled in the first full year, selling into higher dry-season prices.
Photo: BRILHO/SNV · Source: SNV productive-use study (August 2025)
Supported, against a target of 2,413.
12 months after support, against a target of nine.
With access to reliable renewable energy, against a target of 46,000.
Several companies built the systems and track record needed to raise further finance, and entered new provinces and districts.
Source: BRILHO programme reporting. The orange mark on each bar is the target.
Five lessons on building economic value from energy access.
Skills built nationally rather than programme by programme, and finance that lets access build the income paying for it.
Jobs and professionalisation came, but technical capability stayed concentrated in a few firms, and skilled labour is short.
Why it matters · Principle 7. Green industrialisation depends on technical capability held in Mozambique.
Company systems and track records improved, but growth is still held back by costly finance, currency exposure, and reliance on imported products and support. Local banks took little part, despite concessional loans and guarantees being available.
Why it matters · Principle 10. Private-sector participation without compromising national sovereignty needs companies anchored in Mozambique.
Solar irrigation tripled average production, but only where pump sizing, crop and plot fit, and access to repair lined up.
Why it matters · Principle 12. Local production and processing are the route to socio-economic development.
Regulation advanced, but implementation has not yet happened at scale. The planned mini-grid investments did not become operational during the evaluation period.
Why it matters · Principle 7. Prioritising clean energy for national industrialisation needs connections as well as rules.
Build productive use and anchor demand into mini-grid design from the outset, so consumption (and tariff viability) grows with the connection.
Benefits accrued largely within existing roles. Ownership, income, and control were not systematically tracked.
Why it matters · Principle 14. Justice and gender equity in employment, training, and financing.
Sources: Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO (Recommendations 6 and 8); Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050 (Principles 7, 10, 12, and 14); BRILHO programme reporting.
Energy technology provided through BRILHO improved women's daily conditions at home, and GESI initiatives changed how supported companies hire, promote, and set policy.
Felt mainly by women, and reported as:
BRILHO's results-based finance for gender:
One of the changes that surprised me the most was how much less time it took to prepare meals… my main expectation was to save on charcoal, but… the stove also speeds up the cooking process… it allows me to devote more time to other productive tasks or to spending time with my family.
Female focus-group participant, 30 · Maputo Province · BRILHO Evaluation Report
BRILHO's seminars and reporting requirements helped MozCarbon embed gender into its overall strategy. The company described this as one of the programme's more significant capacity-building contributions.
Sources: BRILHO Evaluation Report (focus groups and user interviews); 60 Decibels, Round 1 (March 2023); BRILHO GESI incentive design; programme GESI reporting.
Six lessons. Five serve Principle 14 on justice and gender equity; one serves Principle 4 on biomass.
GESI designed in from the outset, an institutional home for the Gender Seal, and reporting on outcomes rather than participation.
Some women operated productive-use equipment or became owners of EV assets. However, GESI was not embedded from the design phase. Benefits often accrued within existing roles, with men largely controlling contracts and income.
Why it matters · Principle 14. The ETS requires the transition to be just from the outset.
Integrate GESI from the outset: baseline data, company assessments, dedicated expertise, safeguarding, inclusive payment design, and attention to who controls assets and income.
The gender RBF put £100,000 behind hiring and promoting women, with eligibility tied to action plans, policies, and grievance systems.
Why it matters · Principle 14. Equitable access to employment, training, and financing has to be designed into company targets.
The Gender Seal concept and standards were developed, and partially adopted into the MIREME GESI Strategy.
Why it matters · Principle 14. A just transition needs an institutional owner that outlasts any one programme.
Develop a full-scale implementation mechanism for the Gender Seal, with government ownership.
Repayment risk fell unevenly on widows, female-headed households, and seasonal earners, and productive-use equipment removed paid work that women relied on.
Why it matters · Principle 14. Equitable access for vulnerable groups includes how repayment is designed.
Reporting focused on participation numbers, not skills, leadership, customer access, income, or accountability.
Why it matters · Principle 14. Equitable access to employment, training, and financing is measured in outcomes, not head counts.
437,000+ clean-cooking units reached households. Users reported lower fuel costs, less smoke, and faster cooking. These were gains within existing roles rather than shifts in control.
Why it matters · Principle 4. Traditional biomass is reduced through cleaner solutions households will actually use.
Tailor the transition to existing cooking habits and household needs, and pair it with awareness campaigns and customer education.
Sources: Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO (Recommendations 7 and 10); Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050 (Principles 4 and 14); BRILHO GESI incentive design.
What key stakeholders can do to speed up Mozambique's progress on its ETS principles.
Success should mean functioning and affordable services, productive value for users, participation and benefits for women and local firms, and institutions and markets able to sustain progress beyond individual programmes.
Many of the actions needed to achieve universal access have already been identified through analysis of BRILHO. They fall to financing partners, government, and the private sector.
Finance built for long-lived energy assets, in ticket sizes this market can absorb, with after-sales service funded alongside sales.
Turn the framework into standard documents, working tariff tools, real tax relief, and a clean-cooking regime. Keep trained staff, and require outcome reporting.
Separate credit from the sale, diversify revenue, and build the repair and monitoring that keep systems working. Check technical fit and align repayment to seasonal income.
Sources: Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO; Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050.
Choose a stakeholder to see their actions under each theme.
Align behind the government-led country platform, so companies face one set of rules and terms rather than one per programme.
Bring patient capital, viability-gap funding, guarantees, and tariff support. Scale aggregators that package pipelines into investable tickets, and ease fund eligibility.
Make sustainability a design-stage decision criterion. Fund after-sales, spare parts, and repair capacity, not only units sold.
Pair investment-readiness support with guarantees, risk-sharing, and concessional credit through local banks. Finance productive use so access builds the income that pays for it.
Target finance and apprenticeships at women and low-income entrepreneurs. Require baseline GESI data at design, and fund GESI-linked RBF.
Publish standard concession documents, timelines, and tariff tools, and streamline approvals. Convert provider registration into real VAT and import-duty relief. Set a clean-cooking framework with credible carbon rules.
Draw on the public, private, international, and multilateral sources the ETS envisages, rather than successive subsidy windows.
Require outcome reporting (active customers, repayment, functionality, repair time) rather than delivery volumes alone.
Embed off-grid and productive-use skills in colleges, trade schools, and agricultural training, so capability is built nationally rather than programme by programme.
Give the Gender Seal an institutional home, with government ownership and a mechanism that survives development-partner support.
Take part in the platform routinely rather than ad hoc, and use the registration and reporting systems so the data behind policy is real.
Pair RBF with working capital, including pre-financing stock against future claims where there is a track record. Unbundle the loan from the sale.
Build local repair capacity and plan for component replacement while sellers are still operating. Diversify revenue beyond a single asset.
Assess farm, crop, water source, and payment capacity before installation. Build local distribution and repair rather than displacing it.
Set targets that reflect company size, technology, and starting point. Track skills, leadership, customer access, and income, not participation counts.
Sources: Altai Consulting End-of-Term Evaluation of BRILHO; Mozambique Energy Transition Strategy 2023–2050; BRILHO programme reporting.
