By our correspondent
The Zungeru hydropower project, located on the Kaduna River in Niger State, Nigeria, is a 700MW hydroelectric facility built by a Chinese consortium comprising Sinohydro Corporation Limited and China National Electric Engineering Company. The project costs about $1.3bn (N162.9 billion), is the biggest power project completed in Nigeria in the past ten years and one of the biggest power projects in Africa took avail preferential loan facility from the Export-Import Bank (Exim Bank) of China.
The project is designed to generate 2,630 GWh energy with a total installed capacity of 700MW. The main components of the Zungeru hydropower project include a 2,400m roller-compacted concrete (RCC) gravity feed dam, an underground powerhouse located behind the RCC dam, a tailrace channel, and two switchyards on both banks of the river.
The Zungeru project is estimated to generate 2.64 billion kWh of electricity annually, which will meet close to 10% of Nigeria’s total domestic energy needs. It will also provide flood control, irrigation, as well as water supply and fish breeding facilities.
The construction works on the power plant started in May 2013 and were expected to take 60 months for completion with an initial completion date of 2018. However, legal and financial challenges related to ecological settlement in the affected area delayed the project commissioning to 2021. The global pandemic COVID-19 further delayed the construction period as the site was shut down from operation in the year 2020 during the peak of the pandemic.
The engineering, procurement, and construction contract was awarded to a Chinese consortium comprising China National Electric Engineering Company (CNEEC) and Sinohydro. Despite security challenges, such as the attack on workers at the site in early 2022, the Zungeru hydropower project is progressing well. On August 15th 2023, the project was successfully handed over to the Nigeria Government.
The Zungeru hydropower project is a testament to China-Nigeria partnership at its best and is set to make a significant contribution to Nigeria’s power generation capacity.
