Kibuye Power 1

Cancelled

In March 2005, Dane Associates Ltd (UK) entered into an agreement with the Government of Rwanda (GoR) for rights to construct a 34MW gas power plant at Kibuye. The agreement also included a 49 year concession contract for methane gas extraction from Lake Kivu at Kibuye and Gisenyi to fuel the plant, and a 25 year power purchase agreement to sell electricity from the plant to Electrogaz, the state-owned utility (run under management contract by Lahmeyer International). The initial 34MW plant was expected to cost 60 million euros (US$ 76 million), which would be provided by Dane Associates (70%) and the Rwandan Government (30%). Dane would provide funding through loans from the International Finance Corporation, the PTA Bank, the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund and the Finnish Fund for Industrial Corporation. Later phases of investment intended to expand capacity to 200 MW. Generation was intended to commence in 2007. As of February 2007, construction had not started. In February 2007, the government filed a lawsuit against the company over Dane having not invested the required funds into the project. It appointed an interim administrator to KP1 who took over the management of the company, effectively nationalizing the Dane project. Thus, the contract between Dane Associates and the GoR was effectively cancelled by the government, although Dane Associates has disputed this in the courts until as recently as 2012. In the meanwhile, the government has sought an alternative for the plant (see below). Studies have confirmed availability of 55 billion cubic meters of methane gas, sufficient to generate 700MW of electricity for 55 years. 350MW of this belongs to Rwanda, the other half to the DRC. The Goverment of Rwanda has succesfully rehabilitated KP1 and the plant has generated 1.5MW of electricity since October 2008, albeit this is below the 4.5MW capacity of the plant. Ludan Technologies of Israel has engineered the $15 million project. The GoR is looking to divest the plant or start a joint venture with a private company to boost the plant's capacity to at least 50MW. Negotiations were announced in July 2011 with Israel Africa Energy Ltd, but no agreements appeared to have been concluded that year. The gas concentration was first detected in the 1930s, but the first project to evaluate the commercial potential of the lake’s methane resources was not until 1963, and the gas was not used for power generation until 2006, when the Kibuye Power 1 plant came online with a generation capacity of 5 MW. The project was developed by Danes Associates in collaboration with the Rwandan government. American company Symbion Power acquired the plant in September 2016, and is now seeking gas purchase agreements to boost the plant’s production capacity to 25 MW by 2018 and 50 MW by 2019. The initial project of 2005 was taken over in 2007 by the Rwandan government. The pilot has been up and running since 2007. The government has engaged in talks with the private sector in the second half of 2011. The government hopes that with private participation, the pilot project can be build up to an industrial plant.