Inga–Shaba HVDC

The HVDC Inga - Shaba is a high-voltage direct current transmission line ( HVDC) in the central African state Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, and is used to transport electrical energy from the west of the country in the south-east location and resource-rich province of Katanga for copper recovery.

The HVDC line begins near the Inga Dam (coordinate: 494.4758335513.610833505 ° 31 ' 27 " S, 013 ° 36' 39" E - 5.524166666666713.610833333333 ) and ends after 1700 km in the southeastern province of Katanga, formerly Shaba, in the town of Kolwezi (coordinate: 489.3425005525.452222510 ° 39 ' 27 " S, 025 ° 27' 08" O 10.657525.452222222222 ). It is the longest transmission line in Africa, with the particularity that a separate line with a correspondingly large area requirement was elected by the majority only poorly accessible terrain for each pole.

A special feature of HVDC Inga - Shaba is that, when needed, the polarity of each pole can be switched, which allows operation in the form of two parallel-connected monopolies. In this case, all the energy is transmitted through a terminal of the line, which increases the availability of the system. There is also a partial Besides commissioning of a pole possible because the HVDC Inga - Shaba has intermediate switching stations, where line segments can be switched off or in parallel. However, no energy of the line can at these plants, which are located at Selo, Kikwit, Kananga and Kamina, must be used because in these systems, no converters are installed.

The conduit is designed for a transmission capacity of 560 MW, and can be operated with a DC voltage of ± 500 kV when bipolar or alternatively with the half-power as a monopolar HVDC transmission. The construction was started in 1973, due to social unrest, the transmission system could be taken only in 1982 with 10% of the projected performance in operation. Builders of the plant is the company Asea Brown Boveri (ABB). In the 1990 years, the transmission power was increased to 200 MW.