Training Course on Hydropower Operation and Management in Zambia Kicked off with Full Success

---On Nov. 11, 2019, Training Course on Hydropower Operation and Management in Zambia, which is sponsored by Ministry of Commerce of P. R. China, and organized by National Research Institute for Rural Electrification, also known as Hangzhou Regional Center (Asia-Pacific) for Small Hydro Power (briefed as HRC), was kicked off in Sinohydro KGL (Kafue Gorge Lower) site, 100km away from the capital of Zambia, Lusaka. Totally 90 participants attended the 30-day training, among which 75 were local staff working on the site of KGL, and the rest 15 participants were from ZESCO Limited. This the first time HRC organizes a training course in Zambia, which is the 118th training workshop and seminar that HRC has organized to this date.


H.E Trevor Kaunda, Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Energy of Zambia, attended and addressed the opening ceremony. He started his speech by sharing with the participants his own life and career experience, encouraging the participants to seize this precious opportunity to make the best of this training course, and put what is learned from the training course into practical work, contributing to the growth of the energy sector in Zambia in the future.

Ms. Zhang Wei, Secretary from Economic and Commercial Counsellor's Office of Chinese Embassy in Zambia, pointed out that human resources training is one of the most important parts of cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and Zambia. The Chinese government is now providing many chances to send Zambian participants to China for training every year and is encouraging Chinese organizations and institutes to organize training courses in foreign countries to train the local participants based on the local conditions. She hoped that all the participants could take an active part in the training course and gain real benefits from the training as well as put forward comments and advice on the training organization.

Mr. Dong Dafu, Deputy Director General of HRC, stated that it was convinced that hydropower plays an important role in power generation, flood control, water supply, irrigation, etc. in China, contributing a lot to the rapid social-economic development and improvement of people's livelihood. Over the past years, China has developed a series of management and standardization system and accumulated great experience in the field of hydropower, which is always ready to be shared with other developing countries. This training course, based at the on-going KGL (Kafue Gorge Lower) hydropower project which is being constructed by Sinohydro Bureau 11 Co., Ltd., aims to share with our Zambian friends China's experience in hydropower construction and the technologies in design, consultation, construction, operation and management, promoting the hydropower development in Zambia.

Sinohydro Bureau 11 Co., Ltd. offered great support and assistance to the organization of the training course including the provision of training venue, enrollment of training participants, and assisting with the training progress. Mr. Zhou Qingguo, Manager of Sinohydro KGL, said that China is the leading contractor in the world for integrated and comprehensive infrastructure construction. KGL would be the biggest hydropower project that Sinohydro builds in Africa in terms of the unit capacity. The total installed capacity of the power plant will be 750MW, which will greatly ease the power tension in Africa. He hoped that through this program, more technical staff would be trained, who would serve for the operation and maintenance of hydropower for Zambia in the future.

Mr. Amos Kakompe, Manager of Training Quality Assurance from the Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority, Mr. Michael Mulasi Kwanda, Principal of Energy Development from ZESCO Limited, and Mr. Zhang Taofeng, Deputy Manager of Sinohydro KGL were also present at the opening ceremony. (2019-11-18)

Group Photo

Opening Ceremony

Technical Presentation