THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ZAMBIA HIS EXCELLENCY Mr RUPIAH BWEZANI BANDA, VISITS SIAVONGA TO LAUNCH THE KARIBA NORTH BANK EXTENSION PROJECT President Visits 01On the 6th March 2009, the President of the Republic of Zambia His Excellency Mr Rupiah Bwezani Banda visited Siavonga to launch the start of the Kariba North Bank Power Station Extension Project. The Lake Kariba Dam was constructed in the late 1950’s to provide electricity generation to both Zambia and Zimbabwe. The full history of the building of the Dam can be seen on the web-site page “History of Lake Kariba”. Kariba North Bank Power Station which is owned and operated by the State owned electricity supply company ZESCO, was constructed in the mid 1970’s at a cost of almost 420 million US Dollars (in 1998 money). The power station has 4 massive hydro turbines generating an installed capacity of 600 MW of electricity. An upgrade project to the original power generation units to increase their capacity from 600MW to 720MW is almost nearing completion and the planned extension to Kariba North Bank will add a further 360MW making it the largest hydro power station in Zambia and Central Africa with an installed capacity of 1080MW on completion. The project is a major undertaking for Zambia costing an estimated 420 million US Dollars (almost as much as the original power station cost – taking account of inflation) and when completed, it will not only provide much needed additional power capacity for Zambia but will also generate foreign exchange for the country as the surplus energy is fed into the Southern Africa power grid. The project is being financed with the help of the China Import-Export Bank, the European Investment Bank and the Development Bank of Southern Africa. The project has a number of international advisors and consultants to aid with the design and supervision of the contract namely: EDF (France); TCE Consulting (India); Fieldstone (Pty) Ltd (South Africa) and Dewey & Leboeuf (France) and the main contractor is Sinhydro Corporation Limited of China. The project contracts were signed in November 2007 and preliminary work began in November 2008. The project is expected to take up to 4 years to complete and it is due for commissioning at the end of 2012.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 05:36:36 +0000
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