- In Angola, the authorities recently attended the ceremony marking the completion of the diversion of the Kwanza River in the locality of São Pedro da Quilemba.
- This marks the effective start of construction of the Caculo Cabaça dam and hydroelectric power station. The facility will have a capacity of 2,172 MW.
The hydroelectric dam at Caculo Cabaça can now commence construction. The Republic of Angola’s President, Joo Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, was present at a ceremony to mark the completion of the diversion of the Kwanza River, on which this infrastructure is being constructed. The ceremony signaled the beginning of the development of this energy infrastructure, which should increase Angola’s installed electrical capacity, which Power Africa presently pegs at 6,143 MW.
According to President Joo Lourenço, the Caculo Cabaça hydroelectric project will be the biggest in Angola and supply 2,172 MW of power to the national system. With a height of 103 meters, the dam will rank among the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa. The roller-compacted concrete gravity dam will stretch for at least 16.3 km, forming a reservoir capable of holding 438 million m3 of water.
The reservoir of the dam will be around 10 kilometers away from the hydroelectric power facility. Five Francis turbines, four of which will have a 530 MW rating each, will be installed at the plant. The power plant will have an ancillary turbine with a reserve flow of 52 MW. The Catete and Laca substations will be used to discharge the electricity produced by this hydroelectric project before it is fed into the national electricity grid of Angola. The Southern African Power Pool will export some of this electricity to the neighboring nations.
The Caculo Cabaça hydroelectric plant will start producing electricity starting in 2026, according to the Angolan government. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) provided 85% of the project’s estimated $4.5 billion total cost at the time it was announced in 2017. The project’s cost was increased to an estimated $5.2 billion in March 2020, which included $3.8 billion for the dam’s construction and $1.4 billion for the infrastructure needed for electricity distribution. The German government has approved a further $1.16 billion in funding for the dam’s hydromechanical and electromechanical components, such as the turbines, valves, alternators, etc., in 2020. Germany will provide the necessary equipment. German business Voith Hydro will provide the necessary equipment.
China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC), a business with its headquarters in Wuhan, China, is constructing the dam. The environmental impact analysis of the project did not find that it would significantly affect human settlements or biodiversity. However, the biodiversity of the Kisama national park, through which the Kwanza river runs, may be impacted by the construction of the water reservoir. There are at least nine other dams on this river, which flows from south to north before draining into the Atlantic Ocean, including the Laùca dam, which has a capacity of 2,069 MW.