The Courier

Hydroelectric barrage in Burkina Faso.

© BEI Photo Library

It must be wonderful to work in the hydro-electric business in Africa. Consider this. On its own, the Inga power station – situated on the river Congo between Kinshasa and the Atlantic – has an estimated potential output of between 39,000 and 44,000 megawatts. That is more than twice the power produced by the Three Gorges dam in China, which is the biggest in the world. However, only a minuscule proportion of the Inga Power station’s output is being used (just 1,774 megawatts) and less than half of the site is operational. Now, repair work is under way thanks to funding from the World Bank.

Inga is the stuff of engineer’s dreams. Electricité de France and Lahmeyer International carried out a pre-feasibility study in 1990 – thanks to funding from the African Development Bank – on the construction of a third (Inga III) and a fourth (Grand Inga) power station, as well as a 5,300 kilometre energy superhighway linked to the Aswan dam in Egypt. Even then – almost two decades ago – the cost of the projects was estimated at US$29 billion.

But with the return of peace to the region hopes have been raised that a smaller-scale – but nevertheless significant – project could be feasible. This would involve the construction of Inga III (3,500 megawatts) and the Western Corridor, a second energy highway that would link Inga with South Africa, via Angola and Namibia and provide a connection with Botswana. A third axis in the pipeline would provide a supply connection between Inga and Calabar in Nigeria (2,100 kilometres).

This is one of the flagship projects of the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

There is certainly massive need and consequent demand. For, unless new electricity generation infrastructure is operational by 2012 the whole of southern Africa will face significant shortages. Additionally, there is significant demand from the mining industry, with two major projects (BHP Billiton’s aluminium factory in Bas-Congo, costing US$2.5 billion, and CVRD’s steel plant in Soyo, Angola) that require a total capacity of 1,800 megawatts. That, of course, is more than the Inga I and Inga II power stations produce today.

After the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – whose total hydroelectric potential is estimated at some 100,000 megawatts – Africa’s next most significant hydroelectric source is found in the mountainous plateaus of Ethiopia where the Blue Nile rises. Here too, hydroelectric potential has hardly been tapped. Actual output is currently less than 1,000 megawatts although the country’s potential capacity is estimated at around 40,000 megawatts.

However, rapid development is expected in the future and production capacity is set to double within two years when the Takeze (300 megawatts), Anabeles (460 megawatts) and Gigel Gibe II (420 megawatts) dams become operational. Adding to this capacity another dam, the Halale Werabesa (367 megawatts), will come on stream in 2011.

The European Investment Bank has been approached to provide funding for the electromechanical part of the biggest project in the region, the Gigel Gibe III (1,870 megawatts) power station, costing an estimated US$1.8 billion. Already a contract for the engineering of the project has been signed between the Ethiopian Electric Power Company and the Italian company Salini Costruttori. The aim of these projects is not just to satisfy internal demand, but to export electricity to the surrounding region (Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan and Yemen).

The current economic climate favours these types of projects, as a previous reluctance by both Sudan and Egypt towards any dam upstream of the Nile is now fading away. Most encouragingly, a tripartite joint venture, the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office – whose legal advisor is the former Secretary General of the ACP Group, Ghebray Berhane – recently established a common framework for the management of projects on the river.

As one of the last great frontiers, Africa offers great opportunities and challenges for electricity-industry professionals from all over the world and emerging countries are taking advantage of this.

Currently, China is in negotiations with the government of Guinea over the possibility of constructing the Souapiti dam (600 megawatts) on the river Konkoure in exchange for valuable supplies of bauxite.

The Zambeze is yet another strategic river system, with the potential of generating 12,000 megawatts on the Mozambique stretch of its course alone. Indeed, in Mozambique, where Portugal has just handed back ownership of the Cahora Bassa dam (2,075 megawatts), Energy Minister, Salvador Namburete, anticipates the construction downstream of a second major project by 2015. This is the Mepanda Uncua dam (1,300 megawatts) to be built at an estimated cost of US$1.3 billion, to be followed by a second 850 megawatt power station to the north of Cahora Bassa.

The final financing of these projects has not yet been concluded, but considering the requirements of South Africa and a rapidly growing domestic market, the Compagnie Electridade de Moçambique (Mozambique Electricity Company) is not too concerned about the outcome.

Angola – with the basins of the Kwanza (6,000 megawatts) and Queve (3,000 megawatts) river system – is another unexploited source in a region where demand is set to rise, with growth in gross domestic product reaching around 30% towards the end of 2007.

Other significant projects are also set to get underway soon. In April the World Bank gave the go-ahead for the funding of US$360 million for the Bujagali dam on the White Nile, while the African Development Bank has provided US$110 million in additional financing for the project. However, the drop in the water level upstream in Lake Victoria, which could reduce the installation’s anticipated power output from 250 megawatts to a fina175 megawatts, needs to be taken into account. In Nigeria, the World Bank also intends to contribute towards the repair of the Kainji (760 megawatts) and Jebba (540 megawatts) dams on the river Niger.

The implementation of projects like these does not always have unanimous support. For example, the Mozambique authorities face a difficult task in persuading environmentalists of the validity of constructing the Mepanda Uncua dam. The project’s opponents say it will displace 2,000 people, most of who are farmers. They also argue that the dam will retain sediment and silt with adverse downstream consequences for the mangroves of the Zambeze delta. At the same time, everyone recognises that to develop economically, Mozambique needs to increase its capacity for energy-production.

And that need for economic development includes the future of small and medium-sized enterprises. For example, in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the joiners, tailors and TV repairmen of the Kadutu district would all be out of a job or forced to pay an extortionate price for electricity if the power supply of the Ruzizi dam was interrupted. Day-to-day realities like these point to the fact that – when it comes to the power of water – the situation across Africa is without question much more complex than at first glance.