Lake Kivu, located on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, covering an area of 2,700 km has a special feature that holds promise and devastation in equal measure.
The lake has mindboggling reserves of naturally formed carbon dioxide and methane gas, making it one of the three such lakes in the world; the other two being in Cameroon. The naturally dissolved gases with rich concentration of methane and carbon dioxide of Lake Kivu is almost 1,000 times more concentrated dissolved than one can find in Cameroon lakes. Endowed with 300 billion m3 of carbon dioxide and 60 billion m3 of methane gas, Lake Kivu has the capacity to produce between 120 million and 250 million m3 of methane gas annually. Being atop a volcanic area, the carbon dioxide enters the lake from the volcanic rock beneath it and converts into methane gas by the bacteria and fermentation of biogenic sediments in the lake. That phenomenon had instilled fear among the people living nearby that it may erupt again once the methane gas comes in contact with air.
However, this uncommon geothermic phenomenon has become an asset. Rwandan government addressed the growing energy deficit by producing electricity by involving private investors. Union Chimique de Belge, a Belgium based company began using purified methane gas with a pilot plant in Rubona, on the shore of Lake Kivu. The first phase of the project is almost complete.
KivuWatt, a project managed by Contour Global, is extracting methane from the waters of Lake and use the gas to generate electricity. The Rwandan Electrcity Corporation (RECO), a state owned enterprise buys the power for dsitribution. The US$200 million project, owned by ContourGlobal and executed jointly with Wärtsilä, is expected to add 26MW of generating capacity in its first phase (ongoing now). The generation eventually scales up to 100MW.
The methane found in n Lake Kivu can generate 700 MW of electricity over a period of 55 years. That means the lake will play an important role in ensuring energy security to Rwanda. The share of Rwanda in the generation from the lake will be 350 MW and the rest will be in the hands of Democratic Republic of Congo. The Lake Kivu Monitoring Program, the supervisory board established by the government to ensure the safe extraction of methane gas and protection of the surrounding population through the preservation of the lake’s stability has an important role cut out to accomplish its tasks.
