The Ruzizi I hydro power station was built in the late 1950s on the river just below the outflow from Lake Kivu, exploiting the lake's near-constant water level and the steep drop into the Rusizi valley. It is one of the oldest large hydroelectric installations in the region, and supplies power to parts of the DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi through the SINELAC interconnection.
You cannot walk through the plant without permission, but the access road gives good views of the dam and penstocks. For travellers it is mostly interesting as a piece of late-colonial infrastructure that has — improbably — outlasted decades of war and political turmoil.