Kigali, 16 January 2018- In May 2017, the Government of Rwanda has launched construction works for a $350 million peat to power plant in Mamba Sector, Gisagara District, Southern Province expected to connect 50% more households onto national grid in the fall of 2018.

During a site visit made last week by the Southern Province Officials, significant progress in the project implementation were noted. The Governor of Southern Province, Marie Rose Mureshyankwano said “There is no doubt that the plant will be fully operational in the next two years given our physical inspection and what engineers on ground have confirmed”.

Hakan Quantum Power reaffirmed the statement and commitment to meet the timeline especially in terms of plant operationalization.

Once completed, the peat project is expected to increase 40% of national power capacity and it will bring more energy independence to the Country since it is meant to use 100% of domestic fuel leading to the reduction of imports.

After the construction, Quantum Power will run the plant for 26 years before handing it over to the Government of Rwanda.

Rwanda has similar operational peat plants - Gishoma peat – to – power energy plant in Rusizi district generating 15 MW, recently connected to the national electricity grid.

While laying a foundation stone in May 2017, Hon. James Musoni, Minister of Infrastructure told area residents that the plant will increase connection of more households to national energy grid increase our installed capacity by 80 MW.

“Together with other energy projects in pipeline, it is expected that our installed capacity will significantly increase to more than 500MW in the next five years”, said Minister Musoni.

The Government of Rwanda targets to connect 70% of Rwanda’s households to electricity by 2018. It has also set a target of increasing the generation capacity to 563MW from the current 208MW.

To speed up the project, the cabinet meeting of 05 December, 2017 officially handed over to Rwanda Energy Group (REG) the management of power plants supplying over 42MW to the country’s electricity grid.