Malanje- The Minister of Energy and Water, João Baptista Borges, announced today, Tuesday, in Malanje, that the signing of the bilateral agreement between Angola and Namibia for the start of construction of the Baynes Hydroelectric Plant (AHB) will be signed in September.
João Baptista Borges gave this assurance at the end of a meeting with his Namibian counterpart, Tom Allweendo, which took place at the Laúca Hydroelectric Plant in the municipality of Cacuso.
According to the minister, the bilateral agreement will be signed by the Heads of State of the two countries, thus sealing the mutual commitment to carry out the project, which he considered vital for extending the electricity grid and promoting energy exchanges not only between Angola and Namibia, but also with other SADC countries, including South Africa and Botswana, with which Namibia is already interconnected.
The meeting will be preceded by another meeting between the Angolan Ministry of Energy and Water and the Ministry of Mines and Energy of the Republic of Namibia.
João Baptista Borges pointed out that the public financing model was approved at the meeting, but it will still have to be submitted to the Heads of State.
‘If it is public funding, we will have a year to mobilize sources of funding under favorable conditions to carry out this work as quickly as possible, given that 16 years have passed since the two states took the initiative to build the project,’ the minister said.
Regarding the value of the project, the minister said that the initially agreed estimate of 1.3 billion million US dollars remains unchanged, noting that the final cost will depend on the outcome of the public tender to hire the executing company.
The costs will be shared by the two countries, since each will benefit from around half of the capacity to be produced.
João Baptista Borges said the meeting decided on the urgent conclusion of the environmental impact study, at a time when Angola has already decided to finalize the road that will link the Port of Namibe to the town of Baynes, passing through Yona, a fundamental section for the start of the project.
Tom Allweendo, , Minister of Mines and Energy of the Republic of Namibia on his turn reaffirmed that the implementation of Baynes will make it possible to extend the network to the SADC market and boost the economic and industrial development of the countries of the region.
The Namibian official emphasized that, given the current price of electricity, the two sides had found it possible to finance the project with public rather than private funds.
The bilateral meeting between the Ministers of Energy and Water of Angola and of Mines and Energy of the Republic of Namibia aimed at analyzing the environmental, technical and economic feasibility study for the Baynes project, the implementation model and the resettlement plan for the communities.
The meeting culminated in the signing of a pre-implementation agreement.
Background to the Baynes Hydroelectric Project
The binational Baynes Dam will be built on the Cunene River, on the international stretch bordering the Republic of Namibia, about 48 kilometres downstream from Epupa Falls, 200 kilometres from Ruacaná, where the river crosses the Baynes Gorge.
The project will consist of a roller-compacted concrete dam with a height of 200 meters, a crown length of 1,25 meters, a reservoir length of 40 kilometres and a flooded area of 58.15 square kilometers at full storage level.
The main dam's power station will have a capacity of 860 MW, with 4 units of 215 MW, 430 MW of which will be for Angola and 430 MW for Namibia. The integration of the Baynes HPP into the national power grids of the respective countries is guaranteed through the Angola/Namibia regional integration network (ANNA).
A regulation dam is also planned, where a power station will be installed with 3 units of 7 MW each, totaling 21 MW of power, as well as a flooding area (‘footprint’ of the reservoir) extending about 6 kilometers upstream.
The dam wall will also be used as a road crossing linking the western road corridor of Angola and Namibia.ACC/PBC/DAN/AMP
