Students get to meet Angolan Energy Minister thanks to exciting GCU partnership

GCU students had the opportunity to meet with the Angolan Minister of Energy and Water as part of his recent campus visit, thanks to an exciting new university partnership involving renewable energy.

PhD student and Angolan citizen Nelson Santos got the chance to meet with Angolan Minister Antonio Belsa De Costa and share his thoughts on the GCU partnership – which includes developing a strategy to implement renewable energy systems in Angola.

We spoke to Nelson about the experience of meeting the minister and how it feels that GCU is involved in such an important project for Angola:

Your PhD is very relevant to the project being undertaken by Angola and GCU – what does it involve?

“I’m working to find a way to implement artificial intelligence which should help develop a maintenance strategy to improve the reliability of those renewable assets. I feel that at the end of my research, my PhD is going to be very relevant because it will be able to measure the impact of the three main goals set out by the Angolan government.”

How important was this visit?

“The Angolan government has a strategy to help diversify the energy sector and Antonio Del Costa came to Scotland to see how the government could be partnered with the university. Scotland is really far ahead in relation to the renewable energy sector, and Antonio visited GCU to find out how the university could contribute towards the project by upscaling the skills of technicians within the renewable energy sector.

The Angola government relies heavily on hydropower in thermal plants in order to generate electricity in Angola. Unfortunately, because the rural and suburban areas aren’t connected to the main energy line, it makes it difficult for them to access electricity. We know how flexible the implementation of renewable energy is by partnering with Scotland, who will be able to build this project for Angola. It will help the Angolan government reach each target to provide electricity to those rural areas by 2025.”

How did it feel getting to meet Antonio Belsa De Costa?

“It was an amazing experience. As someone who comes from an area in Angola which faces all of these challenges, I was able to share my thoughts and experience as a citizen and an engineer from GCU.

My Undergraduate degree was in Mechanical Systems Engineering, so I was able to share with him about how the university and renewable energy sector in Scotland will be a really positive partnership.  

The major challenge, apart from the lack of technology in Angola, is having the skilled people to run this type of project. We can come to Scotland and get experts to work in Angola, oversee and run the project. However, these experts will eventually return to Scotland so we need to train our local people and help create jobs – helping the project become more sustainable going forward.”

By Rachael McAlonan

Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or