The Western Power Corridor Company (Westcor), a joint venture (JV) between African utilities from five Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, namely, SNEL (Democratic Republic of Congo), ENE (Angola), Nampower (Namibia), BPC (Botswana), and Eskom (South Africa), recently announced that additional progress has been made on the JV’s Inga hydropower project.
At a recent industry event, the CEO of Westcor, Pat Naidoo, said that from 2010, the DRC would benefit from additional electricity, in the order of 1000s of MWs, for its mining sector. The Westcor project intends to harness the hydroelectric energy of the Congo River at the Inga rapids site located some 225-km downstream from Kinshasa in the DRC. Angola, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa will also receive power from Inga Three by 2015.
The JV aims to begin construction on the $5 billion, 4,300 MW baseload capacity station within the next 14-20 months. When complete, the Inga Three will become Africa’s largest power station. The potential to increase Inga’s generation capacity to 12,000 MW also exists.
In February, the JV reported that the pre-feasibility study for the Inga Three hydropower project has been completed and that the next phase is being planned. Westcor is in the process of selecting engineering, environmental, and construction contractors, as well as legal, risk, and financial consultants to get underway.