Harnessing the mighty current

Jeevan Vasagar
Guardian Weekly

One of Africa's biggest electricity companies has unveiled plans to build the world's largest hydro-electricity plant on a stretch of the Congo river, harnessing enough power for the whole continent.

The proposed plant at the Inga rapids, near the river's mouth in the western Democratic Republic of Congo, would cost $50bn and could generate about 40,000MW, twice the power of China's Three Gorges dam.

The river is seen as ideal. Known as the "river that swallows all rivers", it is fed by 10,000 streams that funnel into powerful rapids along its 4,500km course. Rather than damming up the river entirely, the proposal by South Africa's state-owned power company, Eskom, involves creating a "run-of-river" plant in which water is siphoned off, channelled through turbines and fed back into the river.

The plan has won over independent experts. Such plants are common in Canada, Norway and Switzerland, although their output is much less than that from a dam. Backers of the plan, which will also involve building a small dam on the river, claim it could even generate surplus power to sell to southern Europe.

Reuel Khoza, the Eskom chairman, said: "Only between 5% and 10% of Africa's population has access to electricity. That we consider lamentable in a continent that is abundant in energy sources. The Inga project is one that really excites us because we believe that in one fell swoop we could address the bulk of Africa's needs and do it in a manner that is clean and environmentally friendly, by harnessing run-of-river hydro-electricity as opposed to damming up a river."

But critics say even run-of-river plants can damage the environment, by blocking the migratory path of fish and stalling the flow of silt downstream. There are also fears that electricity from the project, dubbed "Grand Inga", will simply enrich corporate backers rather than reach Africa's poorest.

The plan also hinges on attracting private investors, who may be cautious about committing large sums of money to one of Africa's most unstable countries. Congo endured civil war between 1998 and 2002, and despite peace accords the conflict has simmered. About 3 million people died, mainly from the hunger and disease linked to the conflict. Eskom believes that it has enough credibility to secure the $50bn needed from private investors and the World Bank.

The scheme, which is supported by the power utilities of Botswana, Namibia, Angola and Congo, as well as South Africa, will develop two existing plants at the Inga rapids. Built in the 1970s and 1980s, Inga 1 and Inga 2 continued to supply power even during the civil war, although they now provide only half their potential because of lack of maintenance.

The plants already provide power to the capital, Kinshasa, and parts of western Congo, and export electricity to Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Inga 1 and 2 will undergo a huge revamp and a third power plant Inga 3 will be built on the site, which will supply power to Nigeria and other west African states.

Construction work on Grand Inga will not begin until Inga 3 is complete, which could take more than a decade. When complete, it is hoped Inga will become the cornerstone of a pan-African power grid, linking existing systems from different countries.

A feasibility study by the French utility Electricit¿ de France has indicated that both the Grand Inga scheme and a plan to supply power from it to north Africa are viable. The project's backers hope to build an electricity inter-connector from Inga through the Central African Republic and Sudan to Egypt, linking the grids of north and southern Africa.

Although Eskom claims its plan is environmentally friendly, campaigners are worried. "One big unknown is the effect on fisheries and river ecology," said the World Rainforest Movement in a report on the project. Any environmental damage could have a grave impact on subsistence farmers who depend on the flow of sediment down river to fertilise fields, and to harvest fish to supplement their diets.

About 526 million Africans do not have access to electricity. Power cuts are common, and in the remote parts of the continent the sole power source is the diesel-fuelled generator.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianwe...433807,00.html

I read about this sometimes last year and from what I understand so many european or white American owned companies are bidding for that contract and those white south african company EKSOM doesnt stand a chance infront of CARLYLE CONSORTIUM GROUP and i think they probably might get a piece of the action also ABB(swedish if not Danish) have a huge experince in subsaharan Africa in terms of those big time electric supplying contract

German's are also in the game fronting Siemens who are also willing to co-big with eksom and there has been a big tension as EKSOM has had a good business relationship with Erickson electronics

Now I think the only companies that are going to win the big chunk of that project are the Chinese (SIATCO) as they are really good at lobbying with those governments nd mind you British companies dont stand a chance due to political conflicts with Mugabe while the chinese has had a good relationship with most of Sub Saharan countries

Now what chance do Black diasporan owned companies have?...wanna know my answer?

ZERO