The bank said that the grant would increase the availability and reliability of low cost and environmentally-friendly power in DRC and elsewhere in southern and central Africa, based on the Inga projects.
In assessing the need for the grant, the bank gave its approval to three elements of the efforts underway to boost power capacity and distribution in the region.
The first part of the scheme involves the rehabilitation of the hydro plants at Inga, which are Inga I and Inga II, and the total budget (including a bank contribution) is US$226.7M. Rehabilitation of the plants will see capacity increase from 700MW to 1.3GW of reliable production, the bank said.
The budget needs for the other two elements are US$93.8M for transmission lines, and US$88.5M to improve distribution in Kinshasa, the money for both to be provided by co-financing.
Further aspects of support to the regional power market improvements include help to strengthen the capabilities of the national power utility, Societe Nationale d'Electricite (SNEL).
By the end of this year the US$25M first phase of the refurbishment of Inga II should be completed by Canada-based MagEnergy. The company is undertaking the works under a public private partnership (PPP) deal signed two years ago. Later this year, the company plans to get the US$110M second phase of the refurbishment works underway.
The total installed capacity of both Inga plants is about 1.7GW, Inga I having six units each of 52MW, and Inga II having eight turbines of 172MW capacity. However, long term reduced demand and low maintenance budgets cut back output to far less than their installed capacity.
