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A request for proposals (RfP) for the transmission lines component of the 80MW Rusumo Falls hydroelectric power plant on the Kagera River is due to be released in June, according to a general procurement notice issued by the African Development Bank, which is contributing $113m to the project. The RfP is for the construction of transmission lines to evacuate around 448GWh/yr from the facility to Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Rwanda, hopeful of discovering hydrocarbons reserves to underpin its rapid economic growth, is gearing up to persuade international companies that it can be a serious exploration opportunity by offering a more robust legislative framework and other incentives. An Upstream Petroleum Bill has been tabled in parliament and will be debated soon, based on the Upstream Policy approved by cabinet in July 2013. “As soon as the law is passed we will divide the country into blocks and look for prospective areas to present to companies,” minister of state for mining Evode Imena told the East African Petroleum Conference in Kigali on 4 March.

US power developer ContourGlobal aims to complete pre-commissioning of the 25MW first phase of its Lake Kivu methane plant by end-March, then tow the barge out into the lake for the commissioning phase. The innovative project aims to produce 100MW of power from methane dissolved in the lake’s waters, while also averting the risk of a potentially deadly release of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. With the 28MW Nyabarongo hydro plant inaugurated by President Paul Kagame on 5 March and the 15MW Gishoma peat plant due on stream in H2, Rwanda’s installed capacity should reach almost 200MW by year-end.

The Rwanda Development Board (RDB) is seeking bids from local or international operators to upgrade, finance, operate and maintain 15 micro hydropower plants with a combined capacity of nearly 15MW under 25-year concessions. Concessionaires will receive revenue from the sale of electricity generated by the plants under 25-year power purchase agreements to be signed with Energy Utility Company Limited, a subsidiary of the state-owned Rwanda Energy Group. A share of the revenue will be paid to the government as an annual concession fee. The 15 plants have been offered in two separate tenders.

Rwanda inaugurated its first utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) plant at a ribbon-cutting event on 5 February. The 8.5MW park, developed by Netherlands-based, US-owned Gigawatt Global at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in Rwamagana District, about 60km from Kigali, was commissioned in September 2014, increasing Rwanda’s generation capacity by around 6%. Electricity is being fed into the grid under a 25-year power purchase agreement signed in July 2013. The landmark $23.7m project, the first independent power project to commission in the country, was financed by a consortium of equity partners and debt providers. Dutch development bank FMO arranged the senior debt package.

Kenya is to begin exporting 30MW of power to Rwanda via Uganda by July 2015, Kenya Power announced on 10 December, following the signing of a wheeling agreement with Uganda Electricity Transmission Company and Rwanda Energy Group (REG), and a power purchase agreement between REG and Kenya Power. Under the agreements, REG will pay Kenya Power $0.12/kWh for the electricity, while UETCL will levy $0.028/kWh as a wheeling charge.

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has provided grant financing to support the development of four hydropower projects in Tanzania and Rwanda with a combined capacity of 23.6MW. Grants have been awarded to Tanzania’s Kastan Mining to finance a feasibility study for two 10MW run-of-river plants in the Lukosi River Basin, and to Rwanda’s DC HydroPower for technical assistance to develop two run-of-river plants with a combined capacity of 3.6MW, USTDA announced on 12 December.

The Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD) has agreed to provide an RWF8bn ($11.6m) loan to tea producer Rwanda Mountain Tea (RMT) for the construction of a further 4MW hydropower plant on the Giciye River. The second phase of the 8MW Giciye hydroelectric project, located in Nyabihu District in the northern part of Rwanda’s Western Province, is expected to take about 18 months to construct and will cost an estimated RWF11.4bn, BRD said on 24 November. The first 4MW plant was inaugurated in June.

Africa’s first peat power plant is expected to be operational by February, and should be followed by other projects, making peat Rwanda’s second source of electricity generation after hydropower by 2017.The 15MW plant, built by China’s Shengli Energy Group at Gishoma in Ruzizi District, will supply electricity to the local cement factory, which is expanding to increase its production capacity to 600,000 tonnes of cement from 100,000 tonnes at present. The plant is expected to cost $36m, and construction is being supervised by India’s Wapcos Ltd.

The Energy, Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA) has awarded Symbion Power the right to develop a 50MW power project using methane gas from Lake Kivu. The US company will build, own and operate the facility, building gas extraction facilities which will connect to an onshore power generation facility at Cape Busororo, in the Nyamyumba area. The project was awarded following a tender process led by EWSA and the Rwanda Development Board, which Symbion chief executive Paul Hinks described to African Energy as a “very tough competition”. He said: “We were very impressed by the professionalism of the bid process, it was very fair and transparent,” adding that Symbion had “agreed to an attractive tariff”.

Rwanda plans to raise generation capacity to 563MW from 115MW by 2017, and to increase the electricity access rate to 70% from 18% within the next three years. The Ministry of Infrastructure says this ambitious level of expansion is essential if Rwanda is to reach its target of 11.5% annual growth over the next five years.The government restructured the Electricity, Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA) with effect from 31 July, dividing it into the Rwanda Energy Group and the Water and Sanitation Corporation. The reform aims to improve service delivery and give the utility a corporate status, which a EWSA statement said would “allow quick decisions but demand effective performance from the companies”.

Opposition from local authorities to UK private equity investor Actis’ planned takeover of French operator Veolia Environnement’s electricity, water and sanitation concessions in Morocco may be explained in part by a shift in political and popular opinion away from privately financed projects and concessions back to a greater role for local politicians and the state. Morocco is not alone in this: public/private partnership models that give public bodies, and the politicians who lead them, more control are increasingly in vogue.

Rwanda has taken a significant step towards its target of adding 20MW of solar power by 2017, signing a memorandum of agreement with the Goldsol II consortium for the $30m construction and operation of a 10MW solar photovoltaic (PV) facility in Kayonza. The consortium signed the agreement following a competitive tender in which Goldsol II offered a tariff of RW120 ($0.18)/kWh. A feasibility study will now be conducted, which will require approval by the Energy, Water and Sanitation Authority before a power purchase agreement can be signed and construction can begin. Electricity production is expected to start in 21 months.

The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) on 16 May issued a first bond denominated in Rwandan francs, raising RF15bn ($22m) to expand the availability of long-term local currency finance for local businesses while strengthening domestic capital markets. The five-year bond, dubbed Umuganda, marks the first placement by a non-resident issuer in Rwanda’s domestic capital markets. It is also the IFC’s first issuance in East Africa under the IFC Pan-African Domestic Medium Term Note Programme, which was launched in May 2012 to support capital market development in the region.

Canada’s Vanoil Energy has announced that it is pulling out of Rwanda after failing to convert its technical evaluation agreement (TEA) into a production-sharing contract. The TEA expired in June without an agreement being reached, and Vanoil referred the issue to a conciliation committee in line with the TEA. Vanoil said the issues had been “amicably resolved”. The TEA covered 1,600km2 of the East Kivu Graben in south-west Rwanda, including part of Lake Kivu.