Two Congos Choose Hydropower to Meet Power Gap

---

Researched by Industrial Info resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The concept of harnessing the Congo River's massive hydropower generation potential for electricity supply in West Africa and Southern Africa has been around for decades. However, proposed schemes have been aborted, as civil wars and dysfunctional relations between states have hindered the creation of an environment conducive to project development. The Congo River, which has the world's second-largest water flow volume after the Amazon, is capable of producing an estimated 100,000 megawatts (MW) at 341 sites.

In 2009, the Western Power Corridor project was dissolved as the five member nations went their separate ways and the 5,000-MW Inga 3, for which an estimated investment of $5.2 billion required, was stalled. This was to have been the initial phase of the ambitious 40,000-MW Grand Inga project, which had an estimated total investment value of $22 billion.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC - capital Kinshasa), which stretches southward from the south bank of the Congo River is still hoping to revive the grand plan through 2025 and build the Grand Inga dam and power stations. In the meantime, talks are under way with BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) (Melbourne, Australia) about the development of an 800,000-ton-per-year aluminum smelter in the Bas Congo province, which would help motivate the re-launch of the Inga 3 project and use 3,500 to 4,200 MW of the power produced.

The balance of power produced would assist in filling the national energy gap, which has been conservatively forecast to reach 858 MW by 2015, as an increasing number of mining projects in the country will cause the demand for power to rise. The government is targeting the renovation and boosting the power supply with $6.4 billion of projects through 2015, for which funding is being sought.

In the Republic of Congo (RoC - capital Brazzaville), which stretches northward from the north bank of the Congo River, the new 120-MW Imboulou hydropower station has just been commissioned on the Lefini River, which flows into the Congo downstream. Work on the Imboulou Dam, 200 kilometers from Brazzaville, started in 2005 and a transmission network between the power station site and Brazzaville has been completed. The 270-meter-long earth dam provides an 18.3-meter head for the power plant, which has four 30-MW Kaplan turbines and is capable of an annual power generation of 680,000 megawatt-hours. China Machinery and Equipment Company (Suzhou, China) was the lead construction company on the turnkey project. Fichtner Engineering (Stuttgart, Germany) was subcontracted for part of the construction supervision and quality control of the hydropower plant, as well as the 60-kilometer access road.

The project required an estimated $280 million investment, of which 85% was funded by China and 15% by the RoC. The country has been importing up to 33% of its power requirement from the DRC's existing Inga power stations, which are rated at 351 MW and 1,424 MW. The country is looking to become self-sufficient in power as demand grows domestically. The RoC is in one of China's strategic partnership projects in Africa. China has been motivated to develop the project because of its own need for resource security, which has parallels with BHP's quest for low-cost and abundant power resources for its smelter.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. IIR's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.