Tenders are up for grabs to conduct a bankable feasibility study for the proposed Luapula hydropower project
Located on the Luapula river, which straddles Zambia and the south-eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the project has been in the planning for years.
It consists of hydropower plants and transmission line construction at three sites Mumbotuta, Mambilima, and Mambilima with an estimated total installed capacity of 789 MW and is regarded as a key link in the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP).
This week, SAPP announced that it had received grant funding to support technical and economic feasibility studies and was on the lookout for consultants for the provision of a bankable feasibility study, conceptual design, and separate tender documents for each country for the hydropower stations and transmission lines.
It stated that the financing was from NEPAD Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility (NEPAD-IPPF) and the Multilateral Cooperation Centre for Development Finance (MCDF), with the African Development Bank (AfDB) as its supervising entity in the administration of the grant money.
Expressions of interest for the feasibility work are to be delivered via the SAPP’s Johannesburg office by 28 March 2025.
A separate feasibility study is also up for grabs to explore the environmental and social impact assessment of the project and draw up a resettlement action plan.
The new consultancy and feasibility contracts bring the prospect of Luapula hydropower closer to reality after many years in the making.
The DRC and Zambian governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the joint development of generation projects in the Luapula River Basin and a new power interconnector between the two countries back in 2015.
The area’s potential for hydropower was first noted in the 1970s, however.
It was later identified as a priority project in the SAPP Pool Plan of 2017.
The Luapula River runs in south-central Africa forming a boundary between the southern DRC and northern Zambia for about 560 km of its course.
The river rises in the Bangweulu Swamps, one of the world’s largest wetlands, lying east of Lake Bangweulu in eastern Zambia, then descends into a series of falls and runs into Lake Mweru in Tanzania.
In 2021, US$2.5mn was spent on feasibility studies, notably to examine the Mumbotuta site, on behalf of the DRC and Zambian state power utilities, SNEL and ZESCO.
According to the AfDB, the project will also facilitate integration with the Kolwezi-Solwezi transmission interconnector project, the Mozambique-Zambia interconnector and the Zambia-Tanzania-Kenya (ZTK) transmission interconnector (via the ZESCO network).
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