Inga dams

1890s map of the Inga Falls

The hydropower potential of the Congo River was recognized quite early on, at a time when colonial control was expanding over Africa and rivers were first being harnessed to generate electricity. One early report on this potential came via the United States Geological Survey in 1921; their findings concluded that the Congo basin in its entirety possessed "more than one-fourth of the world’s potential water power". Regarding the Inga Falls location specifically, this was highlighted just four years later by the Belgian soldier, mathematician, and entrepreneur Colonel Van Deuren. He would continue survey work around Inga Falls, and during the 1920s and 1930s there was some movement towards further study of the area's potential by the group Syneba (1929–1939), yet the outbreak of World War II and the dissolution of Syneba put a temporary end to progress on the site.[3]

Atlantropa, a scheme for integrating Europe and Africa conceived by Herman Soergel in the 1920s, included a proposal to dam the Congo River. In this plan, the water would have been used to irrigate the deserts of North Africa, and to generate 22.5 to 45 gigawatts of power.[4]

Despite the lack of progress during and in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the tantalizing possibilities offered by the Inga Falls remained prominent in engineers' minds. The 1954 book Engineers' Dreams listed a host of massive projects that could theoretically be accomplished (among them the future Channel Tunnel), the largest being an Inga Dam that would create a lake stretching into the Sahara Desert.[5]

Before Congolese independence, the Belgians still harbored the hope of constructing a massive Inga development project to generate electricity for heavy industry.[6] Among those industries discussed were "aluminum, ferro-alloys, the treatment of ores, paper, and a plant for the separation of isotopes."[7] Their vision, at least publicly, was bold, with one authority comparing the potential industrial development in the Congo to the German Ruhr.[7] There was an important American connection to the project in the form of Clarence E. Blee, one of five foreigners on a 10-person study of the Inga site in 1957 and the chief engineer of the United States' foray into federal electrical and industrial development, the Tennessee Valley Authority.[7] This study would play a central role in convincing the Belgian authorities to set an Inga dam in motion.

An Inga scheme, loosely reported as consisting of a "series of power stations and dams", was finally passed by the Belgian Cabinet on 13 November 1957, and a group was slated to be created in order to study the possible uses of the project's electricity and the ways in which to fund it. The Cabinet's plan was estimated at the time to cost US$3.16 billion and was expected to generate 25,000 MW.[8]

A report from late April 1958 stated that excavation work would hopefully begin by midyear, with 1964/1965 as the year set to bring the initial stage to completion. Plans called for three stages of construction, beginning with a 1,500 MW plant with a $320 million price tag, then twice that capacity, and eventually the 25,000 MW originally approved. Industrial development would advance in step, helped by a start price of $0.002 per kwh, producing 500,000 tons of aluminum with the construction of the first plant and eventually aiming for a final production goal six times that. An international syndicate named Aluminga, comprising a number of European and North American firms, was already organizing to realize this. Funding was an issue, especially once the Belgians realized that they could not accomplish such a project alone. Possible investors cited by the press included the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank.[9]

In February 1959 a group of prominent American investors including David Rockefeller visited the Inga Falls,[10] though construction was continually being pushed back from original estimates, then slated for 1961 or later.[11]

Congolese independence from Belgium did not suddenly erase the importance of Inga development. Belgian authorities were still pushing the project while negotiating independence with Congolese delegates, with Minister Raymond Scheyven proposing a joint Congolese-Belgian company that would fund an Inga dam. This was not a minor idea, but the main project in a five-year Congolese development plan he proposed.[12] That advice was apparently not heeded, as newly elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba signed a fifty-year contract with the Wall Street-based Congo International Management Corporation to develop the Congo on 22 July 1960, with an Inga project and associated aluminum production at the top of the list.[13] PM Lumumba later backtracked and claimed that the deal was "only an agreement in principle",[14] but regardless he was deposed by Army Chief of Staff Mobutu Sese Seko less than two months later.

Inga I facility

Despite the ensuing period of instability, rebellions, and UN interventions in the first half of the 1960s, it did not dampen leaders' hopes to harness the rapids of the Congo River. From the wreckage of the Belgian departure and the subsequent turmoil emerged Mobutu Sésé Seko, who seized full power for himself in November 1965 and would remain the Congo's authoritarian president until May 1997. It was during his reign that the first and so far only projects were built to generate power from the Inga Falls.

Inga I was the first project brought to completion. A feasibility study was conducted by the Italian firm SICAI in 1963, which recommended the dam support domestic industrialization as opposed to export focused industry.[15] Funded mainly by the government, construction took place from 1968 to 1972, leaving a six-turbine plant generating 351 MW.[16] This electricity was mainly fed to the populated areas around it and downstream; its successor was explicitly for mining activity in the south.

Inga II was the second hydro project built at the site just south of Inga I. Even with just eight turbines, it was built to produce 1,424 MW, and was completed a full decade after Inga I.[16]

In order to connect the power generating capacity at Inga with the copper and cobalt mines located near the Zambian border in Shaba Province (now Katanga), a new project aimed to build the longest high-voltage direct current power line in existence, bypassing local communities and converting into alternating current at its final destination. The various groups involved had economic as well as political agendas; while Western investors and the Congolese government wished to support the Shaba mines during a period of elevated copper prices, the government also wanted to consolidate its power over the secessionist southern province, and the West had an interest in seeing the Congo stay firmly in the anti-communist camp. The cost for the project was constantly revised upward, eventually reaching $500 million over budget. A mix of private and public groups provided the financing, notably Citibank, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, and the U.S. Export-Import Bank, and it was the storied Boise, Idaho-based company, Morrison-Knudsen, that was contracted to do the work.[17][18]

In 1980, the costs of the Inga-Shaba power line totaled 24% of Congo's debt, which along with corruption, other wasteful spending, and bad decision-making, led to a debt crisis and the intervention of foreign experts.[19] As of 1999, Congo still owed the U.S. Export-Import Bank over $900 million, leaving American taxpayers unpaid.[20] As the Inga-Shaba line neared completion in the early 1980s, many news articles poured scorn on the project. One from the Washington Post juxtaposed its failure with a successful Peace Corps project to improve the Congolese diet, noting that, "the grandiose project has so far turned out to be a white elephant, while the low-key fish-farming endeavor has already made visible improvements in the lives of several thousand people in a similar period of time."[18] Gécamines, the state-owned mining company in Shaba that was founded in 1906 by the Belgians, ended up still mainly using hydroelectricity supplied locally, and thus the Inga-Shaba line found itself being used at a mere third of capacity. Furthermore, the structure itself has been degraded as local peoples have used its metal bars for a variety of domestic needs.[21]

The DRC has faced the problem of rehabilitating the two existing dams, which have fallen into disrepair and operate far below original capacity at roughly 40%, or just over 700 MW combined.[16] In May 2001 Siemens was reportedly negotiating with the government over a billion-dollar partnership that would involve restoration and modernization of the DRC's electrical grid, including the rehabilitation of the two existing Inga power plants,[23] though work was delayed.[24] In mid-2003 there was also a report that the World Bank had signed a $450 million contract with Siemens to improve water and electrical distribution in the DRC, including rehabilitation of the two Inga projects (reported at the time to be at 30% capacity) and a second electrical line from Inga to the capital.[25] It is unclear what transpired concerning these contracts.

Separately in May 2005 the Canadian company MagEnergy signed an agreement with SNEL to rehabilitate some of Inga II's turbines, with a completion goal of 2009.[26] Actual work to rehabilitate Inga II finally began 27 April 2006, just under a year after the initial agreement with MagEnergy was signed.[27] This first phase, which involved fixing a single 168 MW turbine and other emergency repair work, was reported 90% complete in April 2009, and the second phase (four other turbines) was estimated to take five additional years.[28] However, there is doubt over whether the government accepts the validity of the contract, and in the meantime the Canadian company First Quantum was hired to rehabilitate two separate Inga II turbines.[29] To carry out the repairs, the SNEL has received funding from the Regional and Domestic Power Markets Development Project, which is itself supported by the World Bank, African Development Bank, and European Investment Bank.[16]

In August 2021, media reports indicated that Société Nationale d'Électricité (Snel), the national electricity company of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ivanhoe Mines Energy DRC, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining conglomerate, Ivanhoe Mines, agreed for the latter to rehabilitate turbine number 5 on the eight-turbine Inga II power station. This will provide 162 megawatts to be consumed by the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Mine, near the city of Kolwezi, in Lualaba Province, in the south of DRC. The work will include the rehabilitation of the Inga–Kolwezi High Voltage Transmission Line.[30]

The Grand Inga Dam, if harnessing much of the power of the river, could generate up to 39,000 MW – and would significantly boost the energy available to the African continent at a cost of more than $80 billion. Connecting Inga to a continent-wide electricity grid for main population centers would cost $10 billion more (est. 2000), and would be the world's largest hydroelectric project. Critics contend the huge amounts of money required for the project would be better spent with smaller scale, localized energy projects that would better meet the needs of Africa's poor majority. A study from Oxford University supports this cautious approach by showing that the average cost overrun for 245 large dams in 65 countries across six continents is 96% in real terms.[44]

The New Partnership for Africa's Development, with significant involvement of South African electric power company ESKOM, suggested in 2003 to start the Grand Inga project in 2010.[45][46] At an installed capacity of 39,000 MW, the Grand Inga Dam alone could produce 250 TWh annually, or a total of 370 TWh annually for the whole site. In 2005, Africa's annual electricity production was 550 TWh (600 kWh per capita).

The project is expected to top US$100 billion in total development costs.[47][48] In May 2016 construction looked as if it would begin within several months.[49][50] However, in July 2016 the World Bank withdrew its funding following disagreements over the project despite power purchase agreements from South Africa and mining companies.[40] The first phase grant would have totaled US$73.1 million.[51]

Some observers are skeptical of the project, citing its high cost in a country known for its endemic corruption—risking little benefit to the population.[52][53]