Are DR Congo’s plans to build the world’s largest hydroelectric dam going ahead?

From a set of roaring rapids comes a spectacular vision.

There are plans to build a magnificent multi-billion dollar mega-dam on the Congo River – one that will produce enough renewable electricity to power vast areas of Africa.

The structure will be called the Grand Inga Dam. Located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it will have twice the electricity production of the Three Gorges in China and will therefore be the largest hydroelectric plant in the world.

The Grand Inga Dam has lured investors and developers, but decades after it was first created, the site reserved for the structure remains untouched.

While the DR Congo government insisted plan is still in the works, critics point to long delays, DR Congo’s poor governance and the potential for serious environmental damage.

There is also concern about the project’s revolving set of international partners. Just last week, China’s state-owned Three Gorges Corporation pulled out of the project, a source close to the partnership told the BBC.

And then there is the embarrassing bill, which is reported to be $80 billion (£63 billion) in a country that is one of the poorest in the world.

But some believe opponents are holding Grand Inga to a different standard than other major infrastructure projects. And although construction hasn’t started, there has been a flurry of meetings and discussions between stakeholders over the past year.

The need for Grand Inga is certainly there. An estimated 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency, a global watchdog.

Attempts to solve this problem go back decades – and in the early 2000s. DR Congo and its neighbors – South Africa, Angola, Namibia and Botswana – devised an interconnected electricity grid.

They looked to the vast Congo River, realizing that its mighty waters had enormous hydropower potential.

The international collective – known as Westcor – seeks to multiply the two dams that already exist on the river – Inga 1 and Inga 2.

Longtime DR Congo leader Mobutu Sese Seko oversaw their construction in the 1970s and 1980s, but by the end of the century both dams had been demolished due to lack of funds to maintain them.

Westcor eventually folded, but their dream of Grand Inga lived on. Inga 1 and 2 are now operating at around 80% of capacity and DR Congo has drawn up plans to increase this capacity by adding six more dams along the river.

These additional dams are expected to generate up to 40,000 MW of electricity at any time—enough to power New York City for roughly four days in the summer.

Through Inga, DR Congo will play its role as the “trigger of the African revolver…a catalyst for the industrialization of Africa,” says the country’s Agency for Development and Promotion of the Grand Inga project.

The BBC contacted the agency for this article but did not comment.

Despite previous predictions that Inga 3 would be completed by 2018, construction has not even begun.

The lack of visible progress suggests the project is at a standstill, but recent announcements from the World Bank – the world’s leading development organization – suggest otherwise.

Late last year, the bank announced it was back in talks with the Congolese government after withdrawing its funding for Inga 3 in 2016.

The World Bank cited “strategic differences”, but eight years later – and after Felix Tshisekedi replaced Joseph Kabila as DR Congo’s president – it has reversed course.

“I think for the first time I feel more optimistic. I almost believe we can do it,” Demetrios Papathanassiou, the World Bank’s global director of energy and mining, told a South African group last February.

This optimism seems to be felt elsewhere. A pan-African alliance of financial institutions – including the African Development Bank – recently worked together to help attract private investment to the project.

Grand Inga is like “a snake – it’s up, down, visible, invisible,” José Ángel González Taus, chairman of AEE Power, a Spanish-run company and partner in the project, told the BBC.

In November, Fabrice Luzinde, head of DR Congo’s public electricity company Snel, said that if work on Inga 3 begins in 2026, two of the turbines should be operational by 2032. The electricity produced by those turbines will fund the other turbines, he said.

By itself, Inga 3 is expected to produce 4,800 MW of electricity. South Africa, country hampered by regular power outagessigned a memorandum of understanding (MoU) stating that they would contribute just over half of that amount.

South African authorities say Inga will deliver consistent and reliable power, but critics in the country say cheaper electricity can be found elsewhere.

A Nigerian company, Natural Oilfield Services, has also reportedly signed up as a buyer. Like South Africa, Nigeria also suffers from severe electricity shortages.

Guinea and Angola have also reportedly expressed interest in the Grand Inga Dam.

So why – after decades of talk – have no new dams materialized?

“This is a project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” says Mr Tausch bluntly. “Even if the project is one of the best in the world – it doesn’t have the credibility.”

For decades, DR Congo has been plagued by corruption, lack of infrastructure and slow development. The conflict in the east of the country is also making international headlines – even though Inga is thousands of kilometers away from the fighting.

Investors are also “scared” because Grand Inga won’t show returns for decades, Mr Tausch said, adding “who knows what will happen in the Congo in the next 30 years”.

Mr Tausch, whose father worked as an engineer on Inga 1 in 1972, also said a lack of financial commitment from the Congolese government had contributed to the delay.

And then there’s the problem of funding. In September 2023 DR Congo’s president told reporters that the country “still faces difficulties in mobilizing investment” for the dam.

The recent withdrawal of China’s Three Gorges Corporation exacerbates these difficulties. Three Gorges was a major partner, bringing money and expertise to the complex project.

According to a BBC source who spoke on condition of anonymity, Three Gorges pulled out because they were disappointed with the way DR Congo President Tshisekedi was handling the project.

There is no official confirmation of the download.

But are these problems unique to Grand Inga Dam? Not quite, says Professor George Agidis, a hydropower expert at Lancaster University in the UK.

He says years of delays and multiple changes of partners are “normal” for a major infrastructure project like the Inga Dam.

He points to Great Britain The Mersey Tidal Project – which, if successful, would be the largest tidal barrier in the world. The idea was first floated in 1984. and was abandoned, then revived in the decades since.

“Does that mean we are unstable here in the UK?” asks Mr Agidis. He described the Inga project as “doable”.

A similar opinion is shared by Alexander Schwab, CEO of Andritz, an Austrian-based company that signed a contract to supply equipment for Inga 3.

Mr Schwab says Andritz has signed a memorandum of understanding with Congolese authorities but has not received any information about the 2021 project.

He seems largely unfazed by the lack of communication, saying one in three major infrastructure projects will be “stuck somewhere”.

For Mr. Schwab, Grand Inga is “one of the best mega projects … in the world.”

But despite its potential, there are deep concerns about the project’s environmental and social impact.

A common criticism is that the dam will benefit South African consumers and DR Congo mining companies, but not the Congolese people. About 80% of the population does not have access to electricity.

“Inga will not bring electricity to the people,” said Emmanuel Musuyu, head of the Congolese civil society coalition Corap. He claimed that most of the electricity had already been promised to South Africa and the mines.

In a recent report on Inga 3, DR Congo authorities acknowledged that the dam “is not sufficient on its own to address DRC’s energy and development challenges” but said it could act as a “catalyst” for national change.

The World Bank said it is exploring how it can support the government to ensure Inga “delivers broad energy access benefits”.

Environmental and human rights groups also worry that an estimated 37,000 residents in the Inga area will be displaced without compensation. According to organizations such as International Rivers and the Observatori del Deute en la Globalització, thousands were forcibly removed from their homes and never compensated when Inga I and II were built.

They also say the first two dams damaged the region’s biodiversity and that any additional dams are likely to do the same.

“This will have a specific impact on the fish and all the animals in the water… when you change the flow of water in the rivers, we can see some species of fish disappear,” says Mr Musuyu.

2018 survey argues that many large-scale hydroelectric projects in Europe and the US have been environmentally disastrous.

DR Congo authorities acknowledged that people would be displaced by Inga III, but said residents would be resettled in areas with basic services and promised that “fair compensation” would be awarded.

They also acknowledged the risks to the local environment and said an assessment to reduce that impact would be completed over the next two years. However, according to a BBC source close to the project, the authorities have not yet raised enough money to fund these studies.

If Grand Inga is simply experiencing the ups and downs that come with major infrastructure projects, the World Bank may still have cause for optimism.

But a dam is a complex engineering project—one that requires many stakeholders to work together in harmony.

The return of the World Bank, only to leave the Three Gorges, suggests that DR Congo is struggling to maintain such unity.

And despite DR Congo’s ambition, construction cannot begin unless funding is secured.

So for now, it seems that this project, which has the potential to change the lives of millions of people in Africa, remains just that – a grand vision.