Guinea launches construction of 515-MW hydroelectric project

Guinea started construction on Tuesday on the 515-megawatt Chinese-built Souapiti hydroelectric dam, about 50 km from the power-starved capital Conakry.

The 1.5 billion dollar project, a cornerstone of President Alpha Conde’s infrastructure push, is being built by China Water Electric (CWE) and will take nearly five years to complete. The company also built the 240-megawatt Kaleta dam.

“This project will allow Guinea to be an energy exporter,” Energy Minister Cheick Taliby Sylla said during a speech at the ground-breaking ceremony.

Conde, who won a second five-year term in an election in October, has pledged to restart the West African nation’s economy, which was hit hard by a sharp drop in metals prices and the deadly regional Ebola epidemic.

Criss-crossed by rivers, Guinea possesses around 6,000 mega-watts of largely unexploited hydroelectric potential.