Luapula hydro power project to start

THE

implementation of a feasibility study towards the establishment a 163-megawatts Luapula Hydropower Corporation in the province will soon start after the company obtained substantive water rights.

The company’s projects are on Kundabwika and Kabwelume waterfalls. Corporate affairs director and company secretary, Katambi Bulawayo, yesterday told the Daily Nation that the company has now secured both the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) environmental impact assessment approval and substantive water rights for 25 years from Water Resources Management Authority

( WARMA).

Mr. Bulawayo said he was happy that despite a number of delays in implementing the project, it was now ready to proceed with feasibility studies adding that the project’s location was ideal for hydropower generation due to abundance of water.

“We did the environmental impact assessment in December last year which we submitted to ZEMA and ZEMA approved it. We received approval letters in September. We then proceeded to WARMA, informing them that we had now satisfied the obligation and conditions for us to get the water rights.

“WARMA then gave us substantive water rights and so at this point we have an approved environmental impact assessment and substantive water rights for 25 years and this means we can proceed with our feasibility studies,” Mr. Bulawayo said.

He said the company was determined to contribute to the development of the country’s economy by reducing the power deficit which Zambia has been grappling with each time there was low rainfall as most of its power projects were concentrated in the southern region of the country which mostly received inadequate rainfall.

He said the location of the company’s projects was ideal for uninterrupted power generation as the region received adequate rainfall and that water bodies recorded an excellent water harvest each season and that this would not only foster development in the area but will also significantly reduce load shedding once implemented.

“It is our desire to contribute to national development as citizens who have seen and appreciate our nation’s potential to uplift the lives of its citizens and in particular those in Luapula Province from the abject poverty to which they may be a subject of,” he said.

Luapula Hydropower Corporation was incorporated in 2012 with a view to take advantage of hydropower opportunities in Zambia.