Eskom Enterprises (EE) plans to spent four billion rand in electricity and energy projects in Africa over the next 10 years, according to Public Enterprises officials. Its share of the Congo project is not available at this stage, but officials noted that it would be substantial and would depend on the division of shareholding between five countries.
The Congo project involves the building of a 3,500 megawatt (MW) Inga III hydro-power station and it is expected that it will be commissioned in 2010.
In Cape Town, Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe released his ministry's bible on parastatals involvement on the continent as part of South Africa's commitment to the New Partnership for Africa's Development.
The "Western Power Corridor Project" is a joint venture of the Botswana Power Corporation, Empresa Nacional de Electricidade (Angola), Eskom Enterprises (South Africa), NamPower of Namibia and Societe Nationale d'Electricite of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The ministry indicated that "the goal of the project is to provide low-cost, affordable and environmentally friendly energy and to ensure that economic development in the region was not constrained by shortages of energy capacity".
"It will be the largest hydroelectronic project in the world and then we will only be tapping a small amount of the available resources," said Radebe's special adviser Dr Ian Phillips, who predicted that Africa would in time become a net exporter of power to Asia and Europe.
The project also involves building hydro-power stations in Angola - on the Kwanza River with a possible generation capacity of 6,700 MW - and in Namibia.
It is envisaged that interconnections will be built with fibre optic links for broad-band telecommunciation to be leased to operators.
The first phase of the Inga III project will cost four billion US dollars.
Radebe noted that EE had recently acquired 51% of the Lunsemfwa Hydro Power Company in Zambia and had won the Uganda Electricity concession signed in November last year. The latter granted EE a 20-year concession to operate and maintain two hydro stations - Nalubale and Kiiri with respective installed capacity of 180 and 200 MW.
The two stations are situated at Jinja, the point where the Nile starts its journey from Lake Victoria.
EE has also bee appointed as the operator for the Manantali Project in Mali for the next 15 years. It includes management of the Manantali Dam, a 200 MW hydro power stations, including associated 225 kV transmission lines connecting the three electricity utilities of Mali, Senegal and Mauritania and dispatching power to the three national utilities. The contract includes revenue management and river flow management.
The owner of the assets, Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du Fleuve Senegal is a trust company formed between the three countries. OMVS has delegated responsibility for this specific project to a sub-trust company called Societe d'Exploitation de Mali.
Radebe told journalists that EE engineers "are tapping the immense power resources of rivers in Zambia, the Nile and the might Congo". Others were busy surveying, building substations, erecting pylons and stretching transmission lines across a dozen countries across the continent.
Radebe noted that the Development Bank of Southern African estimated that South Africa was contributing between 10 and 20% of FDI in Africa - concentrated mainly in southern Africa.
