KEY POINTS
- Rwanda will compensate at least 1,232 households with an estimated $21 million for Ruzizi III.
- June 8, 2026 is the land acquisition cut-off date for eligible compensation claims in Rwanda.
- Ruzizi III will boost Rwanda’s renewable capacity by nearly 30 percent once it comes online.
A 206-megawatt hydropower project straddling three countries has cleared a critical hurdle on the Rwandan side. At least 1,232 households in Rusizi District, Western Province, are now eligible for compensation as developers prepare to acquire land for the Ruzizi III Regional Hydropower Project.
The project is a joint public-private partnership between Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. The private sector sponsors are Industrial Promotion Services, the industrial and infrastructure arm of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, and SN Power, owned by TotalEnergies. It is being developed through a special-purpose vehicle called Ruzizi III Energy Limited.
Developers have completed the identification, inventory and valuation of all land, buildings, crops and trees affected on the Rwandan side. A compensation list has now been published.
Cut-off date closes the window on new claims
June 8, 2026 is the land acquisition cut-off date. Any assets or developments added after that date will not qualify. The measure prevents landowners from building or planting new assets after learning their land is in the project’s path, which would inflate compensation costs.
“The recent declaration of the land acquisition cut-off date in Rwanda is an important milestone in the implementation of the Resettlement Action Plan,” said Mohsin Tahir, project director at Ruzizi III Energy Limited.
Compensation covers landowners, crop owners, tenants and sharecroppers. An estimated $21 million will be spent on the Rwandan side alone. The total number of eligible households will be confirmed once the cut-off process concludes.
Once operational, the plant will share its output equally among the three partner countries. It will boost Rwanda’s renewable energy capacity by nearly 30 percent, almost double Burundi’s current installed generation capacity and deliver baseload renewable power to eastern DRC.
Rwanda’s $3 billion push to double generation by 2030
The project sits inside Rwanda’s broader $3 billion investment plan to double generation capacity to 1,066 megawatts and achieve universal electricity access by 2030. That target has become more urgent as demand accelerates.
Kigali’s peak power demand is projected to rise 64 percent by 2030 even without electric vehicles. Serge Wilson Muhizi, chief executive of Energy Private Developers, said the shift toward e-mobility and industrial growth is compounding the pressure on the grid.
“Rising business opportunities are creating more need for electricity. We are seeing more industries and an increase in electric vehicles, triggering rising energy demand,” Muhizi said.
Ruzizi III is financed by the World Bank, African Development Bank, European Union, European Investment Bank and several other multilateral institutions. In June 2025, American electricity company Anzana Electric Group signed a letter of intent to acquire a 10 percent equity stake in the project’s holding company.
