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dam-l Grand Inga Dam/LS
>African Energy
>Volume 1 No. 1
>
>
>Grand Inga waiting for a war to end
>
>
>Although the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains embroiled in a
>widespread civil war the mineral rich country is aware of its potential to
>become one of Africa’s major electricity exporters.
>
>
>The country’s energy minister, Christian Eleko Botuna, has been reported
>as saying that there are plans to raise the generation capacity of the
>Inga hydroelectric power station from its current 1 700 MW to 44 000 MW by
>2010. Recently the minister visited Egypt to discuss long term plans to
>sell that country 12 000 MW of electricity. The Democratic Republic of the
>Congo also believes it can supply electricity to another two of the
>continent’s largest electricity markets, South Africa and Nigeria. The
>minister has met with an Eskom delegation to discuss a draft agreement
>relating to the Grand Inga project. The agreement with Eskom provides for
>the strengthening of the Inga-Kolwezi and Inga-South Africa
>interconnections as well as the construction of a second power line that
>will supply power to Kinshasa. It was also discussed that the Democratic
>Republic of the Congo’s national electricity corporation (Snel) may supply
>110 MW of power to Eskom. In addition, under the agreement, the Kinshasa
>city electricity distribution network will be managed by the South African
>company.
>Inga, like Cahora Bassa in Mozambique, was originally dismissed as being a
>white elephant when it came on stream in 1972 after the Democratic
>Republic of the Congo’s independence from Belgium. After Inga 2 was added
>in 1982, the hydroelectric scheme had an installed capacity of 1 700 MW.
>Before the recent civil war and its predecessor, which overthrew Mobutu
>Sese Seko and brought Laurent Kabila to his shaky throne, power lines from
>Inga exported electricity to Zambia and Zimbabwe and the hydroelectric
>plant also fed power to three of the former Zaire's 11 provinces. The
>country’s copper and cobalt mines in southern Katanga province also depend
>on Inga. Historically, Inga’s generation has not gone above 50% of its
>capacity, running at a maximum of between 550 MW and 600 MW. Much of this
>power was used by state mining company, Gecamines, which took up to 500
>MW. Overall the country has a reported generation capacity of 3 131 MW
>from hydroelectric sources and 68 MW from thermal sources.
>However, if plans for implementing the US$7,5 billion project to expand
>Inga’s generation capacity are to come to fruition, the civil war in the
>Democratic Republic of the Congo will have to come to a civilised
>conclusion. The Inga dam has been one of the pawns in the battle for the
>control of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it was held by rebels
>for a while during 1998, before they abandoned it in the face of advancing
>Angolan troops. Last year the capital Kinshasa was blacked out for
>prolonged periods in August and September because of what officials
>reported as sabotage by rebels of distribution lines from Inga. In spite
>of Inga’s potential, the fact that the country has become a battlefield
>not only for different factions within the country, but involving troops
>from countries including Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Namibia and Angola
>means that a potentially cheap source of hydro power capable of supplying
>a large segment of the continent’s power needs will remain untapped for a
>while longer.
>
>###################################################
>Richard Sherman Project Officer Group for Environmental Monitoring (GEM)
>P.O.Box 30684 Braamfontein 2017 Johannesburg, South Africa Tel:011 403
>7666 International: + 27 11 403 7666 Fax:011 403 7563 International: + 27
>11 403 7563 cell:082 464 1742 email: rsherman@gem.org.za
>
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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