The governments of South Sudan and Egypt have signed a cooperation protocol that includes the preparation of feasibility studies for the construction of the proposed Wau Dam in South Sudan.
The feasibility studies will complement the integrated technical and economic studies carried out at the project site back in 2015 by the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, in collaboration with Egypt’s National Water Research Centre (NWRC).
It included hydrological and hydraulic studies, surveying and contour mapping for the dam site and storage lake, geological, geotechnical, construction, and environmental studies as well as the initial designs of the dam and its facilities.
An overview of the project
The Wau Dam project will be carried out on the Siwi River, one of the main branches of the Jur River in the Bahr al-Ghazal Basin, at a distance of approximately 9 km south of Wau, Southern Sudan.
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With a storage capacity of 2 billion m3, the dam aims to generate about 10.40 megawatts of electricity that will help improve the power supply in the West African country by injecting 64 GWh of electricity into the national grid per year.
The electricity from this dam will be evacuated through a power transfer station and accessories planned for construction as part of the project. Economic feasibility studies for the station have already been carried out by experts from the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy.
In addition to providing electricity, the dam will also provide drinking water to 500 thousand people or its thereabouts, and provide supplementary irrigation for 12,600 to 16,800 hectares of land.
The project will cost US$ 1.2 billion.
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