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By Xinpei Zhou, Olivia Huang and Xinchen Jiang. First published in The Paper.
The largest hydroelectric power station in Côte d'Ivoire (and the largest in West Africa when it was built) - Soubré Hydroelectric Power Station was an unfulfilled dream of the local people for half a century. Soubré is the capital of the Nawa region, adjacent to the Sassandra River, the most important river in the southwest of the country. As early as 1962, the French Electricity Company had already measured that the Nawa Falls had great potential for power generation, with an estimated hydropower reserve of 1,100 megawatts and an annual power generation of 5,900 gigawatt-hours.
In 1982, Côte d'Ivoire and France drafted a bidding document for the construction of a hydroelectric power station at the Nawa Falls, but the bidding was cancelled for some reason. After nearly 20 years of silence, in 2000, with funding from the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA), Côte d'Ivoire asked the French engineering consulting company Coyne and Bellier to update the feasibility report. Unfortunately, in 2002, civil war broke out in Côte d’Ivoire.
It was not until the peace agreement was signed in 2007 that hydropower construction was put on the agenda again. In 2008, the country’s Ministry of Energy again commissioned Coyne and Bellier to issue a feasibility report for the hydropower station. In the same year, PowerChina also began to pay attention to this project and began to promote its implementation. [Note 1, 2] Dr. Brahima Dosso, an Ivorian engineer, went to France to study water conservancy and hydropower in his early twenties as a reserve talent for the construction of the Soubré Hydropower Station.
It was not until he was nearly sixty that he became the general manager of the large hydropower project department of the Ivorian Energy Company (CI-Energies) [Note 3] and participated in the planning and implementation of the Soubré Hydropower Station project throughout the process. He was awarded the Knight’s Medal by the President at the inauguration ceremony of the hydropower station, finally realizing his lifelong dream.
Chinese efficiency: Chinese capital + Chinese technology
From November 2024 to March 2025, I interned in Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire, during which time I visited the headquarters of PowerChina in Central and West Africa. When I asked why PowerChina finally pushed for the construction of the Soubré Hydropower Station, Deng Yue, Deputy Country Representative of PowerChina in Côte d’Ivoire, gave the answer that it was Chinese capital plus Chinese technology. PowerChina signed a business contract with the government of Côte d’Ivoire in 2009 and completed the negotiation and signing of all contract documents in 2012. In the same year, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara was invited to visit China and “proposed to seek financing for the Soubré Hydropower Station project in addition to the Western Railway and Grand Bassam Highway projects.”[Note 4]
In early 2013, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Côte d’Ivoire, then Chinese Ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire Zhang Guoqing and then Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire Don Kan signed a loan agreement for the project. According to the project contract and loan agreement, the contract value of the Soubré Hydropower Station is approximately US$572 million.
The Export-Import Bank of China provides a preferential buyer's credit of 85% of the contract value, with an interest rate of 2% and a term of 20 years. The remaining 15% is raised by the Ivorian government. The construction period is 56.5 months. China Power Construction Corporation is the contractor in the EPC mode, and the owner engineer is the French Tractebel-Engie Company (formerly the aforementioned Coyne and Bellier Company).
The so-called EPC refers to engineering procurement construction, which is the general contracting of project design, procurement, construction and commissioning services, and is fully responsible for the quality, safety, construction period and cost of the contracted project. China Power Construction Corporation has always been the world leader in technology with its core advantage of "understanding water and electricity, good at planning and design, long construction and construction, and able to invest and operate".
It has undertaken more than 65% of the construction and more than 80% of the planning and design of large and medium-sized hydropower stations in China, and more than 50% of large and medium-sized water conservancy and hydropower construction in the world, and has rich engineering experience. [Note 5]
Subray Hydropower Station: The East Wind of the Times
In addition to funding and technology, I can also feel the importance of China Power Construction's "entry timing" from the research. At that time, Côte d'Ivoire had just emerged from the shadow of the civil war from 2002 to 2005 and the presidential election crisis in 2011, and there was a lot of work to be done. From entering in 2008 to finalizing the project contract in 2012, China Power Construction also experienced an election crisis and regime change, and then restarted negotiations and achieved success.
According to President Ouattara's speech at the inauguration ceremony of the Soubré Hydropower Station, Côte d'Ivoire "achieved an average annual GDP growth rate of about 9% from 2012 to 2016, and economic recovery has driven the rapid and stable growth of electricity demand"; as a participant in the Paris Climate Agreement, it pledged in 2015 to "reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 28% by 2030"; "The Soubré Hydropower Station has made outstanding contributions to these two goals and will also help control the cost of electricity production." [Note 3] In 2013, China proposed the "Belt and Road" initiative, and China Power Construction and other companies took advantage of this opportunity to further "go global."
Chinese project staff described their first impression of Soubré around 2010 as follows: "When we first arrived, we could sense a sense of desolation; we checked into the hotel and ordered food, and had to wait for a long time before the owner bought ingredients and prepared the meal; when night fell, it was pitch black and there were no lights; today, many families have refrigerators and air conditioners, and there are electrical appliance stores in the local area, which was unimaginable at the time."
In 2017, the Soubré Hydropower Station was completed and put into operation ahead of schedule, with a total installed capacity of 275 megawatts and an average annual power generation of 1,190 gigawatt-hours. It "increased Côte d'Ivoire's national power generation capacity by nearly 14%, increased hydropower installed capacity by 30% to 40%, and improved the country's power structure dominated by thermal power"; "created nearly 3,000 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs in four years of construction"; "electrified 13 villages around the project"; and "increased Soubré's drinking water supply from 100 cubic meters per hour to 300 cubic meters per hour." [Note 3] Overall, the ratio of hydropower to thermal power in Côte d’Ivoire is now 30:70, and the proportion of the population in electrified areas has also increased from 74% in 2011 to 97% in 2023, showing a good development trend. [Note 6]
Boboli Hydropower Station: Keep up the good work
The inauguration ceremony of the Soubré Hydropower Station was also the groundbreaking ceremony for the Gribo-Popoli Hydropower Station. As a sister project of the Soubré Hydropower Station, the Popoli Hydropower Station is also located on the Sassandra River in the city of Soubré, about 15 kilometers away from the upstream Soubré Hydropower Station.
China Power Construction Corporation is also the general contractor, with preferential buyer credit provided by the Export-Import Bank of China, and the Ivorian Energy Company managing power assets on behalf of the state. The contract amount is US$336 million, the construction period is 40 months, and it will be started in August 2021 after receiving the first loan and the owner's advance payment. It was the largest hydropower station under construction in Côte d'Ivoire.
In November 2024, Unit 3 of the Popoli Hydropower Station was successfully connected to the grid and put into commercial operation 30 days ahead of schedule, with an average annual power generation of 554 GWh, which effectively increased the proportion of clean energy in the country's power structure. In addition, the Ivorian government has also entrusted China Power Construction Corporation with the implementation of cascade development of hydropower projects such as the Pudupuri Hydropower Station and Luga Phase 1 and Phase 2 in the Sassandra River Basin.
The development of hydropower in this basin has not only improved the livelihood of the local people, but also consolidated Côte d'Ivoire's role as a hub in the West African Power Union. The country has long exported electricity to Mali and Burkina Faso, and has a 330 kV interconnection with Ghana, a 225 kV interconnection with Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and a 330 kV interconnection line with Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana, effectively alleviating the energy shortage in West Africa. [Note 6]
Electricity Challenges: Where is the Way Forward?
The goal of the Ivorian Ministry of Energy is to "change the country's energy landscape through sustainable development and regional integration, and provide clean, reliable and affordable electricity to the people of the country" [Note 6]. I rent an old residential building in the Cocody district of Abidjan, and I can still feel that the local electricity bill is expensive and the power supply is unstable. According to the electricity bill at my residence, the local electricity price is 81.03 West African francs per kilowatt-hour, which is about 1 yuan per kilowatt-hour, nearly twice the electricity price in Shanghai. Whether I am interning or alone at home, I often experience sudden power outages, which last for three to five minutes and then automatically recover. When the power suddenly goes out, I have also heard my colleagues sigh: "Ah! This is Ivory Coast." Soubré hydropower is not only clean, but also cheap - the cost of power generation is 20 West African francs per kilowatt-hour, while the cost of thermal power generation is 55 West African francs per kilowatt-hour - the development of hydropower will help reduce the financial burden of electricity. [Note 1] However, the French Development Agency also questioned the unstable supply of hydropower and its vulnerability to the alternation of dry and rainy seasons and climate change. [Note 7] China Power Construction pointed out that the upstream dams will adjust the amount of water released according to electricity demand. Since the national electricity demand is higher in the dry season, the hydropower stations in this basin actually generate more electricity in the dry season than in the rainy season.
In early April 2025, Francis Aka, advisor to the Director-General of the National Electricity Regulatory Agency of Côte d'Ivoire (ANARE-CI), led a delegation to visit Soubré and held an information exchange meeting. Local residents expressed their confusion about the fact that the power supply quality was not as good as expected despite having three hydropower stations.
The complaints included public lighting failures caused by occasional power outages, inconvenience in production and life, and even the overly complicated process of purchasing electricity meters. Aka said that the country is taking measures to improve service quality, reduce the frequency of power outages, and promote the purchase of electricity meters. [Note 8] The actual load of electricity used for production and life in Côte d'Ivoire is about 2,338 megawatts.
This year, the country's total installed capacity has exceeded 3,000 megawatts, which can theoretically cover electricity demand. China Power Construction Corporation's technical staff analyzed that there are two main reasons for the current power outage in Côte d'Ivoire: "First, some hydropower stations are old and shut down for maintenance or cannot generate electricity at full capacity.
At the same time, in order to increase power supply, some gas-fired power stations are shut down for expansion, resulting in a phenomenon of power 'inversion', that is, power supply is insufficient to meet demand, forcing power supply companies to adopt a rotation mode of power supply for mining, factory production and residents' daily life; second, the modernization of the distribution system has not been completed, the failure rate of the power grid system is high, and the maintenance response speed needs to be improved." Côte d'Ivoire is at an important stage of modernization, and the demand for electricity is constantly rising. China Power Construction Corporation will work with Côte d'Ivoire to help local economic and social development through power construction.
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