Rwanda is set to construct a 56MW power plant on the shores of Lake Kivu after the government signed a US $200m deal with Symbion Power for the project development.
The Minister for Infrastructure, Claver Gatete confirmed the reports and said that having already mobilised the funds to implement the project, Symbion Power will not be seeking any financing from a lender or a financier.
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Universal access to electricity
The Minister welcomed the development and said the investor’s experience was much-needed diversity in the sector for the country to achieve its energy target. The government is also optimistic that this and other investments will lead to universal access to electricity by 2024.
The expected increase in generation capacity is in line with anticipated demand from sectors such as construction in the development of secondary Cities, mining and quarrying which will be characterized by new modern mining methods as well as processing of metal products.
Construction of the project is set to take 14months. The development will add impetus to the government efforts towards achieving 512MW installed power generation capacity by 2024 from the current 221MW.
The increase in generation is expected to reduce dependence on fuel which is currently at 27% to about 5% as well as reduce the import bill. To increase access to energy, plans are underway to increase transmission lines from the current 486 Kilometres (as of December 2018) to about 1500 Kilometres while substations will increase from 27 to 45 by 2024.
