DR Congo: Inga III - " I plan the path of destiny from this maze "

The World Bank reports

Transformational Hydropower Development Project Paves the Way for 9 Million People in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Gain Access to Electricity

WASHINGTON, March 20, 2014–Sub-Saharan Africa is blessed with large hydropower resources that can bring electricity to homes, power businesses and industry, light clinics and schools, and spur economic activity, creating jobs and improving human well-being. Yet, only 10% of this hydropower potential has been mobilized, weakening the fight to end poverty and boost shared prosperity on the continent.

Six million people have died in the DR Congo alone since 1994. Getting communities on the grid is the first step in many instances to bringing about employment and economic growth. 

To combat this, the World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors on March 20th approved a US$73.1 million grant to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for the Inga 3 Basse Chute (BC) and Mid-size Hydropower Development Technical Assistance Project.

There is vast potential for this project to change the disaster that is the DR Congo into a modern functioning state. The DR Congo is infested with armed groups that are slowly being eliminated, but a project that empowers ( literally )  the communities these thugs prey on. Eliminating poverty would go along way to eliminating instability.

DRC’s overall hydropower potential is estimated at 100 gigawatts (GW), the third largest in the world, behind China and Russia. Only 2.5% has been developed. With a 40 GW potential, Inga is the world’s largest hydropower site and its proper development can make it the African continent’s most cost-effective, renewable source of energy with an estimated generation cost of US$ 0.03 per kilowatt hour.

The Clyde Dam in New Zealand produces electricity at $NZ electricity is being generated at 3 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to 1999 data the most recent I can get my hands on. I assume the cost is calculated over the lifetime of the development though. The relative cost must make the world take notice. 

At the moment mining operations in the DR Congo are primitive yet the country is awash in minerals. This project has potential secondary spin offs that are mind boggling with their economic potential .  

Technical assistance for responsible hydropower development

The technical assistance project will finance in a flexible manner a series of environmental, institutional, social and technical studies that will guide sustainable development of the Inga 3 BC and selected mid-size hydropower projects, with the ultimate goal of bringing more electricity to millions of people who currently have no access.

In the Eastern DR Congo access to electricity is described thus by Goma blogger Charly Kasereka: ( My translation )
" In the avenues, lighting indicates prosperity, how people are doing by the illumination of their house.

Some have private generators and others are subscribers to a common generator purchased and connected by an individual payment of fifty dollars a month but with limits. No irons or electric stove." 
The project presents a unified World Bank Group approach to support the Government of DRC in developing under a public private partnership Inga 3-BC and mid-size hydropower project through a flexible government-led, transparent process. The project will create functional national institutions such as the Inga development agency to pilot the site development and award concessions on a competitive basis. No construction or operational activities will be funded by the technical assistance project.

The DR Congo needs functional institutions even more than it needs Inga III the project funding seems to be on future sales with South Africa signing up for the lions share. From my blog in July last year:

" The treaty makes South Africa the principal purchaser of the power generated at Inga III power plant, the first phase of the Grand Inga. The country will buy 2500 MW of the total 4800 MW from the proposed dam. The balance will be sold to mining companies in Katanga in southeastern DRC." 

Transformative projects that expand people's access to electricity are central to achieving the twin World Bank Group goals of ending extreme poverty and creating shared prosperity in Sub-Saharan Africa. The task of bringing electricity – through grid, mini-grid, and off-grid solutions – is urgent. With only one in three Africans having access to energy, and only one in 10 Congolese citizens having electricity, the challenge could not be greater.

The opportunities are greater still.

DR Congo: Kabila at the UN

Joseph Kabila's speech to the UN General Assembly

JOSEPH KABILA KABANGE, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, paid respect to the victims of the terrorist attack in Kenya before pointing out that the international community was marked by several serious challenges. Indeed, critical consideration of the successes and setbacks of the Millennium Development Goals was overshadowed by the “persistent selfishness” of several States, as well as the up and downs of the global economy. Negative effects of globalization had contributed to the food crisis, famine, sicknesses, and pandemics, as well as to the destruction of the environment, he said, stressing the need for the preparatory process to advance the sustainable development agenda.

Ouch “persistent selfishness”. That is shot across the bows' of the west and it is not off the mark. 

In that, he said, harmonization with other United Nations bodies, particularly the Economic and Social Council, would assist in integrating the economic, social, and environmental pillars of sustainability in the post-2015 development agenda. The new programme must be universal, ambitious, and able to respond to today’s immense challenges, in accordance with common but differentiated principles. Women, young people, and civil society must play a role both in the design of the plan and its execution. On climate change, he recalled the result of the Rio+20 document, “The Future We Want”, in managing natural resources. Contributing to limiting the impacts of climate change was the responsibility of all nations, as well as a duty of international solidarity.

The DR Congo it should be remembered is fairly important to the planet.

" The DRC is home to the greatest expanse of rainforest in all of Africa. Tropical rainforest covers 58.9% of the DRC’s territory – over 515,000 square miles in total. Unfortunately, the global trend toward tropical
deforestation has not left this region untouched. In the decade from 1990 to 2000 alone, over 20,000 square miles of the DRC’s forests was wiped away. In the current decade, the DRC’s rainforest has been shrinking, on average, by 319,000 hectares (over 1200 square miles) annually. "

The Democratic Republic of the Congo was committed to managing its natural resources, he said. The Grand Inga project, based in his country, once complete, would be capable of producing 40,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to provide energy to half the peoples on the continent. However, security remained the most important prerequisite for development because without it, development was a hypothetical.

I can't blame him for the Grand Inga boast but it will not supply half the continent however good that might sound. However the DR Congo has the potential to generate an estimated 100,000 MW of clean hydro energy.   

Having acted in solidarity by welcoming refugees from Rwanda, the population in the eastern part of the country was now deprived of peace and “continued to count up the dead”, he said. Last July’s attack on women and children — “trapped under a bomb” — in Goma left him questioning the legitimacy of international law. He asked: What happens when refugees are responsible for killing the people of their host country? Even more alarming was the fact that his Government had been conducting talks in accordance with the Addis Ababa Agreement with the armed group responsible for the attack, he pointed out.

That is a bit cute on several fronts. I don't think it is fair to say it is Rwandan refugees who are doing the killing. M23 are not Rwandan refugees by any measure. That is not to say that they are not Rwandan as clearly many are and it would be fair to say that they are at no risk of persecution from the Rwandan authorities they take orders from. As for the negotiations between M23 and the DR Congo government again it is stretching things to suggest there is any meaningful dialogue happening however that I think is quite reasonable from the perspective of the Congolese government. 

He went on to say that the Democratic Republic of the Congo was reforming its security sector, including the army and the police; restructuring public finance management to improve the business climate; and organizing local, municipal, senatorial, and provincial elections. Beyond those efforts, sustainable peace depended on putting an end to impunity in all its forms, he emphasized, underscoring the need for all Member States to strictly respect the Charter.

It is starting to look like the reforms are bearing some fruit particularly in the military. The DR Congo is a sleeping giant and one day it will realise its potential, hopefully that day is not to far off in the future.

Hat tip Chantal Faida .

DR Congo: It's big.

News.com.au reports

DR Congo giant hydro dam work starts 2015

Work on the world's biggest hydroelectric dam will start in October 2015 in the Democratic Republic of Congo after talks between DR Congo and international officials. 

                                                Three Gorges Dam ( China )
  

Sunday's meeting on the proposed Inga dam on the Congo river also involved multilateral lending institutions.

A statement said the "foundation stone will be laid in October 2015."
"With a production of 40,000 megawatts, the Grand Inga project will eventually provide electricity to half the African continent," it said.

This is less than half of the DR Congo's total hydropower resources, which the World Bank estimates at 100,000 megawatts.

World Bank estimates suggest that if completed and running at full capacity, the complex could provide energy to up to 500 million African households.
The first phase of the project, Inga 3 Basse Chute, will have a capacity of 4800 megawatts.

The Paris meeting follows a deal signed on May 7 between South Africa and DR Congo for co-operation in the energy sector and for South Africa to buy some of the electricity produced.

Plants would need to be rehabilitated and massive new stations built on the powerful Inga falls, which lie in a narrow strip of DR Congo territory through which the Congo River runs down to the Atlantic coast.

Three consortiums are bidding to clinch the contract for the project: China's Sinohydro and Three Gorges Corporation; Spain's Actividades de Construccion y Servicios (ACS), Eurofinsa and AEE; and South Korean firms Daewoo and Posco with SNC Lavalin of Canada.

Three Gorges Dam in China is currently the world's largest hydropower complex, with a capacity of 22,500 megawatts.

There can be little doubt as to why the DR Congo is such an attractive target for balkanisation.