Plans for the first phase of the Bumbuna hydropower project were unveiled in 1975. Eighty-five percent of construction was complete by May 1997, when it was halted because of civil war. The project was restarted in 2005 and was eventually completed in November 2009. Almost eight years later, in August 2017, Joule Africa signed a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Government, for electricity from a 143-MW expansion of the 50-MW Bumbuna station. It was an importan