Cameroon – Nachtigal dam NGE announces the impoundment of the main dam.
After almost four years of work, the Nachtigal hydroelectric dam civil engineering consortium, led by NGE, has just achieved two significant milestones: the completion of the inlet canal watertightness tests and the impoundment of the dam, two key milestones paving the way for the start of electricity production. This major hydroelectric scheme, whose seven power groups will be commissioned between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024, will add 420 MW of green energy to the country's electricity production capacity, i.e., around a one third increase.
Built on Cameroon’s largest river, the Sanaga, 65 km north-east of the city of Yaoundé, with a flow four times greater than that of the Seine River in Paris, the Nachtigal dam is one of the main infrastructures on the continent. The dam is 1.5 km long and 14 metres high, and the inlet canal – used to create falling water that will generate the electricity in the turbines – is 3.3 km long. The overall cost of the Nachtigal dam is estimated at 1.2 billion euros. This monumental dam will enable Cameroon to exploit its hydroelectric potential, increasing the supply of electricity to the country’s population by a third.
Since 2019 and the launch of work on the design-build contract for the civil engineering work package, NGE has been working with its partners BESIX, SGTM and its subcontractor Tractebel to design and build three main structures on the site:
- a main dam consisting of 120,000 m3 of roller-compacted concrete and 24,000 m3 of conventional concrete, forming a dike approximately 1.5 km long.
- a perfectly watertight 3.3 km inlet canal with a capacity of 980 m3/s, used to create falling water whose energy will be harnessed by turbines.
- civil engineering work on the hydroelectric power station, built in part using high-strength concrete capable of withstanding exposure to Sanaga’s pure waters.