A contingent of top Rwanda government officials and donors have witnessed the launch of a 25 megawatts methane gas power plant at Kibuye, igihe.com reports .
The plant under Kivuwatt project is managed by a New York based international power company-ContourGlobal.
ContourGlobal was tasked to extract and process Lake Kivu’s methane gas reserves for power generation and had set a deadline to start producing electricity methane gas by July 2012.
Additionally the officials witnessed the setting off the state-of-the-art Methane Gas
extraction barge.
The plant is expected to increase the current electricity capacity in Rwanda by 40% and would reduce the expensive electricity.
Speaking at the event, the State Minister for Energy and Water, Eng.Collette Ruhamya said that energy remains a key driver for social economic growth and that Rwanda has prioritize energy in its agenda.
“We believe that the current economic growth Rwanda enjoys must be supported by high increase in energy generation and distribution. This is why the ContourGlobal Project is important as it will
contribute 100Megawatts to the national grid,” she said.
According to Ruhamya, Rwanda targets at producing 1000 megawatts by 2017, however, she admits there are challenges to attain the projected megawatts in the period of six years from now saying it
requires extra investments which the government alone cannot mobilise.
“The government, therefore, encourages participation of independent power producers to invest in electricity generation business. I encourage other private companies to invest in big energy projects as they remain untapped and unutilized,” she added.
Eng. Ruhamya called on the international lenders to explore more projects to fund in Rwanda ‘s energy exploration and that investment in the electricity sector needs joint efforts from all stakeholders .
The CEO of ContourGlobal, Joseph Brandt, described the launch as a landmark due to its sophisticated technology.
He said, “There has never been a project like this, and the size anywhere in the world; it has been designed from scratch and conceptualised by the best technicians from around the world and this was their biggest challenge ever.”
He added that there are only three lakes in the world that have the methane gas resource and Lake Kivu is the only one where the methane gas extraction barge technology has been tried.
According to him the barge is 750 tons heavy, 64 meters long and 25 meters wide. The barge is constructed out of steel and has a closely similar floating technology like a ship.
The construction of the barge began in January last year. The project’s total cost is US$142.2million but so far the funders have availed US$91million.
ContourGlobal intends to extract the gas in three phases; the first phase involves the extraction using a floating barge that will be located in about 13 kilometers offshore.
The projected was funded by the African Development Bank (ADB), Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) and the Entrepreneurial Development Fund.
The Resident Coordinator of ADB, Negatu Makonnen, stated that the Kivuwatt project will provide affordable power supply with improved reliability that will increase electricity access to both rural households and businesses in Rwanda.
The extraction of gas from Lake Kivu is also likely to reduce the possible risk of eruption and avoid major loss of life along the Lake.
Currently Rwanda’s domestic power comes from hydropower, limited solar energy and diesel-fired energy and firewood.
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