The AfDB approved a $138-million package of loans and grants to support development of a hydroelectric power plant to serve Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Rwanda. The loans and grants will aid in the construction of the Ruzizi III plant as well as a transmission line.
According to the AfDB the plant and transmission lines will aid in further developing the three countries and is “expected to increase electricity trading between the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (ECGLC).”
Ruzizi III, a 147-MW generating plant, will cost a total of $625 million to build and will be the first regional project designed as a public-private partnership, “aimed at optimizing the hydropower potential of the Ruzizi cascade while taking advantage of private sector management efficiencies,” the AfDB said.
A “private partner, acting in the capacity of investor/developer,” will be recruited and awarded a concession to implement the project, the AfDB said. “This partner will be required to develop the project, be a majority partner in the project company with the three countries concerned and secure the necessary commercial debt.”
According to the AfDB, the project will help break the regional reliance on fossil fuels for electricity generation that has “led to serious electricity supply problems within the ECGLC countries, impeding economic activities already slowed due to decades of conflict.”
The Ruzizi III project involves building a run-of-river dam on the Ruzizi River between the DRC and Rwanda, downstream of Lake Kivu, and an 8.3-km 220-kV transmission line from the plant to a dispatch center in Kamanyola, in the DRC’s South Kivu region.