The Ngonye Falls Project
The Ngonye Falls project will see the design and construction of a run-of-river hydroelectric power station on the Zambezi River in the Western Province of Zambia.
The power station will have 180 MW of electricity generation capacity – adding around 8% to Zambia’s total – and produce 830 GWh per year of cost effective, clean, renewable energy for local demand and export. Enough electricity for 200,000 Zambian households or the entire population of the Western Province.
The cost to build the power station will be more than 500 million US dollars, the largest ever private investment in Western Zambia. The project will have a very low environmental impact and has been designed to be a net positive impact for the local host community. Construction is due to start in 2021 and last for 3 years. The first electricity production will be as early as 2024.
- An early contribution to help solve Zambia’s electricity crisis - Zambia has a significant and growing defecit of electricity generation which means constant rolling blackouts across the country. The Ngonye Falls project will add 8% to Zambia's total generation capacity.
- Generating energy for economic development and growth in Western Province - Economic and social development in the Western Province is hugely constrained by a lack of available electricity supply.
- Significant direct and indirect job creation - The project will directly employ up to 3,000 people during construction and will create a significant number of skilled permanent jobs during operation.
- Sustainable investment in social development, health and education - Through the community's ownership in the project at least $500,000 will be made avaiable each year for community development projects.
- Strengthening and stabilising the western Zambian power network to reduce losses and outages - ZESCO, the naitonal utility currently suffers significant line losses by having to send electricity long distances to meet demand in the south and west of Zambia.
- Ideally placed to export power to the Southern African region through existing international connections - The project will connect to the Sesheke substaiton which is a major interconnector to Namibia and the rest of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) network.
- Demonstration of the private sector’s ability to work with government to deliver new power infrastructure in Zambia - The Ngonye Falls Project will prove Zambia's ability to complete large, complex infrastructure projects as partnerships between the private and public sector.
