By processing methane from the ultra-deep waters of Lake Kivu, Rwanda 
may have found a revolutionary source of power for the future

In its race for economic progress, as it puts behind it the bitter memories of the 1994 genocide, Rwanda is building glitzy new offices in Kigali as international donors fund road projects across the country. But progress requires energy and energy requires a source. A novel answer to Rwanda’s energy needs has been found in the deep blue waters of Lake Kivu.


Straddling an active volcanic fault system, Lake Kivu has a methane gas content of around 55bn cubic metres with an annual regeneration capacity of 100 MW, which is almost double Rwanda’s electrical peak load.


Muhire Hodari, chief operating officer of the government’s Kibuye Power 1 (KP-1) pilot gas platform, is a humble young man with a big job. In a quiet voice he explains what might well be a key to his country’s development aspirations: “As a first in the world, we have now generated an initial 1.5 MW of electricity from methane gas exploitation. Our extraction technology works and we can now focus on increasing output.” The KP-1 project, managed by the infrastructure ministry, has become a showcase for the transformation of the ‘Land of a Thousand Hills’ and the wider region.

Rwanda’s future demand for power will grow and outstrip the current electricity peak load of 55 MW. Erik Fernstrom, energy specialist at the World Bank’s country office in Kigali, says: “There is a lot of suppressed and unserved demand. A realistic target is a peak load of at least 130 MW by 2015.”


A new heavy-fuel-oil plant in Jabana will generate 20 MW to alleviate immediate shortages, while small hydro-electric power plants are also going up. Rukarara dam, built by Sri Lanka-based Ecopower, should start producing 9.5 MW next year, but the 27.5 MW Nyabarongo project, being built by India’s Bharat Heavy Electricals and Angelique International, will only be ready in 2012. A further planned dam at Rusumo could generate between 60-80 MW, to be split between Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.


Fuel for the fire


Experts see the methane as critical to serve Rwanda’s future energy needs, and the pilot project shows that Lake Kivu can both produce power and bring in the investors. Energy minister Albert Butare confirms that at least two firms have shown interest in harnessing it. 


The Rwanda Energy Company (REC), a subsidiary of local holding company Rwanda Investment Group, is one of them. “We have set up a [separate] test plant on Lake Kivu to refine our extraction technology to not only produce electricity from the gas but to simultaneously produce fertilisers, diesel, kerosene and naphtha,” explained Ivan Twagirashema, REC’s chief operating officer.


US-based Contour Global is also in contract negotiations with the government for the installation of four gas platforms that should eventually generate 100 MW. On the cards are a gas concession and a long-term power-purchasing agreement with Contour, whose CEO Joseph Brandt told The Africa Report of his firm’s plans to invest $75m to install capacity for 25 MW in the first two years, followed by 75 MW thereafter.


Technical innovations


Extracting methane from the lake poses tricky technical challenges but, with the help of Houston-based Antares, Contour has spent 18 months developing the design of the gas-gathering system. “We will have to extract the gas with sufficient pressure to separate the gas from the water,” said Brandt. “But we are both optimistic and humble… We are doing something novel.”


Analysts say the gas reserves will do much to advance sustainable development in Rwanda and may also bring regional benefits. “The gas allows for the development of local industry, as the emergence of endeavours to bottle gas will lower the cost of fuel to the benefit of householders and small businesses,” says Estelle Levin, sustainability consultant at London-based Resource Consulting Services. 


The government hopes the power generation will also help Rwanda to add value to primary exports. “The new energy source promises benefits to tea and coffee manufacturers and may open up major opportunities for value-addition in Rwanda’s mining sector, where the need for energy is great,” said environment and mines minister Vincent Karega. 


The private sector is equally excited about the project. “The news that the pilot plant on Lake Kivu is successfully producing electricity is enormous,” says Bruce Stride, operations director at Kivu Resources, a company planning to build a tin smelter in Gisenyi and to use both the gas and the electricity generated from the gas to produce in excess of 2,500 tonnes per year of refined tin. Rwanda is developing its own tin mining sector, which produced 1,140 tonnes of tin ore in 2007, while tin output from neighbouring North Kivu Province of Democratic Republic of Congo has been estimated at 2,000 tonnes of ore per month. 


A high concentration of dissolved gases in lakes constitutes a risk, as was demonstrated by the deadly carbon dioxide (CO2) outburst at Lake Nyos in Cameroon in 1986, which killed 1,800 people. Lake Kivu not only contains methane, but 250bn cubic metres of CO2. The KP-1 project’s Hodari says: “We have also found significant amounts of toxic hydrogen sulfide, which we currently pump back into the lake because we do not have the technology to use it for energy generation yet.” A report written for the European Community’s humanitarian office states: “Large-scale exploitation of the Lake Kivu gas, if carried out in the right way, would…by reducing the gas-saturation of the lake water…considerably enhance the safety of the region.”