Elsevier

Energy Strategy Reviews

Volume 4, August 2014, Pages 1-10
Energy Strategy Reviews

Analysis
Grand Inga to power Africa: Hydropower development scenarios to 2035

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2014.01.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Upon completion of Grand Inga, CAPP can export power throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

  • Western and Southern African power pools may be the major importers of power from Grand Inga.

  • Grid connections within and beyond CAPP are key to ensure the project's feasibility.

Abstract

The vision of harnessing the Congo River's immense flow to generate power for the African continent has existed in the agenda of energy planners and politicians for nearly a century. However after the installations of Inga I in 1972 and Inga II in 1982, progress came to a standstill. Recently though the larger aspirations of Grand Inga seem to be moving forward again. Construction of Inga III low-head is set to commence in 2015 with a projected capacity of 4755 MW, of which 2500 MW are contracted for the South African market. Upon completion, the total capacity of Grand Inga could reach 42 GW. In this paper, we present scenario-driven results of a Sub-Saharan African-focused partial-equilibrium energy model related to the further development of the project. The analysis is presented to show the broad range of possible energy futures related to this project, without taking into deep consideration the admittedly important issues related to governance, environmental impacts or social tensions. Scenarios are developed to assess the energy outlook of the Central African power pool, in which Grand Inga is located, and the exchange of electricity between regions when the project is completed. The project has the potential to cover the increasing needs for power in this power pool and provide electricity exports to other regions; primarily Southern and Western Africa in a high demand scenario and Southern and Northern Africa in a low demand scenario.

Introduction

A secure supply of reliable energy services at affordable prices is essential to promote economic development. The correlation and search for causality between energy consumption and economic growth has been the research topic of numerous studies as examined in Odhiambo [1]. Access to electricity enhances the level of educational and health services offered [2]. It is one of the key concerns of businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa [3], where power outages are so frequent that value losses as high as 22.7% and 25.1% compared to sales are experienced in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic respectively [4]. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 13% of the world's population, of which 37% live in urban communities and yet just 32.5% have access to electricity [4]. Even within this region there is a great disparity between countries. For instance, access rates are as low as 3% in Chad and Somalia, while in South Africa this reaches 66%, which is the highest in the region [5]. The African continent suffers from severe power shortages, which are often worsened by conflicts, droughts, oil price hikes and lack of capital for investments [6]. However, while the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Africa is expected to increase by 3.8% annually from 2010 to 2035, the electricity demand for the continent is projected to double during the same period [7]. At the same time, if the cost of energy, and inherently the energy intensity, is kept at low levels, benefits will extend to other sectors of the economy. Africa has a rich deposit of natural resources, including an enormous renewable energy potential, which could be harnessed in the future for this purpose [8]. In this paper we focus on the hydroelectric power potential of the Congo River.

The unexploited hydroelectric potential in Africa is estimated at 937 TWh/year [9], compared to the 105 TWh produced in 2010, and a total electricity demand of 569 TWh for the same year [7]. This immense potential stems from the fact that some of the world's longest river courses are found in Africa, namely the Nile, with an estimated hydropower potential of 30 GW in Ethiopia alone [10], the Niger, the Zambezi and the Congo; the latter also has the second largest flow of water in the world after the Amazon. The idea of using the Congo River to produce huge volumes of electricity is not novel. The Grand Inga project, situated in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was first recognized in 1921 by the U.S. Geological Survey and was endorsed by the Belgian colonial authorities in the 1950s [11]. Based on the period's prevalent mindset of exploiting Africa's natural resources to supply goods to the European market, the project was envisaged to provide the electricity needed by copper processing facilities in Katanga's copper belt, the growing aluminum industry and steel producers, who would relocate from Europe to conserve European power [12]. However, due to the long distances and limitations in transmission line technologies, the project was aborted.

Since then, the first two phases of the Inga hydroelectric scheme, Inga I with installed capacity of 351 MW and Inga II with installed capacity of 1424 MW, were commissioned in 1972 and 1982 respectively [12]. Still the project is far from its hypothesized potential of roughly 40 GW. With the formation of the Southern African Power Pool in 1995, the project returned to the agenda of African energy policy. By this time, the development of High Voltage Long-Distance (HVLD) transmission technology had removed immediate technical limitations from a proposed Pan-African grid [13]. A recent official press release suggests that the next phase of Inga III low-head is moving forward and will have a projected capacity of 4755 MW, of which 2500 MW are contracted for the South African market [14]. Further commitment for the project is indicated by the signing of the Grand Inga Treaty, during President Zuma's visit to DRC [15].

Upon full completion, Grand Inga would be the biggest hydropower project in the world and could generate enough power to supply one-third of the current electricity demand in Africa. Its final installed capacity is comparable to the current capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa), which is approximately 42 GW [16]. Nonetheless, project development has been hurdled so far by economic, environmental, social and political obstacles. Any such mega project would require strong governance, significant capital inputs and a skilled workforce, all of which suffer gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa to varying degrees [3]. The issue of building significant transmission and distribution grids is likely a large challenge, in addition to the generation asset itself. Some have posited that a Pan-African grid would allow the continent to optimize its resource use and could bring savings of up to 2 billion US$ annually [17]. An enhanced and more efficient integration between and within power pools would be required to achieve this. Although such a grid is among the priorities of African energy policy, a certain degree of opposition exists; the main argument is that low cost electricity from large projects, such as Grand Inga, will primarily be intended for energy intensive industries in South Africa [18]. Such grand planning gestures are also not always optimal in practice. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa will likely also want to consider the parallel development of mini-grid and off-grid assets in addition to more centralized systems. In addition, the governance and market issues of a Pan-African grid have not been fully vetted.

Nonetheless, there is widespread consensus on the need for expansion of the power generation capacity of the continent. Taking into account the rising electricity demand, goals for increase in electricity access and the expected decommissioning of old, inefficient power plants, these would necessitate capacity additions that could reach 261 GW by 2035, according to IEA's New Policies Scenario [7]. Based on these projections, installed capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) could reach up to 80 GW in 2030 [19]. In view of the current installed capacity of the region and the considerably low electrification rates in most of the countries [5], it can be concluded that these capacity additions will not be sufficient to reach the target for universal access to electricity. Other modeling exercises project that capacity additions of 282 GW will be needed up to 2030 to achieve this goal [10]. As such, great effort is needed to cover this gap. Investment in projects of Grand Inga's scale [19], or even smaller such as the ongoing 6 GW Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam [20], can provide the momentum required to move in this direction. It is worth mentioning that in South Africa, where majority of power generation occurs in Sub-Saharan Africa, 8.7 GW of new coal are planned in the years 2013–2014, while an additional 3.5 GW based on renewable energy sources will be added in the period 2013–2016 [21].

Nonetheless, capacity additions are not the only issue. Even though regional power pools have been formed to promote power trade between countries and regions, minimal electricity trading occurs in Sub-Saharan Africa, while South Africa and Mozambique are currently the biggest importers and exporters of power [9]. A greater grid integration to facilitate trade can serve to unlock considerable volumes of cost-competitive power from renewable energy sources [10].

Whether Grand Inga's power will principally supply energy intensive industry or increase access to the wider economies of Sub-Saharan Africa, there is no doubt as to the significance of the project for the region. The primary aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the effects the implementation of Grand Inga project will have on the generation mix of Central Africa and the “trickle down” effects on the energy outlook for the rest of the continent – with focus on Sub-Saharan countries. Additionally, the financial viability of the project under unfavorable circumstances, such as congestion in power trade, delays in project delivery, lower electricity demand or increased production costs are examined. An indication of the potential for electricity trade between regions upon completion of the different phases of the Grand Inga project is provided.

In Section 2 of the paper, the methodology used, including model construction and scenario formulation are presented. In Section 3, results are reported for the period 2008 to 2035. The paper concludes with short summary and final remarks in Section 4.

Section snippets

Method

A model developed in MESSAGE – a linear cost optimization energy systems tool [22] – is used to conduct the quantitative analysis presented in this paper1. The African

Project development scenarios

It needs to be highlighted that the volume of power that might be generated from Grand Inga is profound within the context of the Sub-Saharan African power system. It is equally clear that the possible scale of the project may be overwhelming for the continent if not managed and planned with considerable care. As an example, in the 2035 Reference case, Grand Inga contributes 73% of the total generation in Central Africa. As shown in Fig. 1, there is a substantial difference in the power pool's

Conclusions

Currently, high power generation costs due to the aging inefficient plants and the constant need for off-grid diesel generators to counter frequent power outages are hampering growth of Sub-Saharan Africa's economy. Demand for electricity in the region is expected to increase drastically in the next two decades and, as a result, extensive capacity additions along with more efficient operation and management of the power system are needed. The analysis conducted in this paper validates the

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