Project Description

The Ruzizi III dam, shared among DR Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, boasts a potential 230 MW capacity.
Phase I featured an Economic Optimization Study supporting design selection. It included a desktop review of power systems in the impacted countries, the evaluation of a counterfactual to the project and the economic evaluation of project options.
Following this analysis, stakeholders selected a site and layout, and further technical assessments were conducted. Phase II of the study incorporated the new project information to update the Economic Integration Report.
Despite data quality limitations, the economic assessment of the Ruzizi III project demonstrates its economic soundness. The results presented are particularly impacted by:

● the increased economic value of avoided CO2 emissions (100 USD/tCO2 is the reference value retained in this study, confirmed by pre-Ukraine crisis EU-ETS values), and
● the assumption that available energy with the required quality of supply will lead existing diesel consuming self-generators to switch to hydropower from the grid.

Key Takeaways

Run of river hydro may contribute to system services and thus value their intraday storage. This is more valuable when solar PV in highly developed in the integrated power system, which were not the case yet in the impacted power system.

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