Chare-Cadet Lwanyi: Accelerating the electrification of the DRC (Tribune)
In his inauguration speech on January 24, 2019, President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo made a commitment to do everything possible to provide access to electricity to at least 30% of the population by 2024 .
Recall that despite its 100,000MW of hydroelectric potential, including 10,000MW suitable for micro, mini and pico-hydroelectricity, the DRC remains one of the least electrified countries on the continent, with only 9% of the population with access to electricity. About 1% in rural areas.
Despite the almost unlimited solar potential, projects in this sector are still timid.
There is no need to recall that the industrial development necessary for the development of the DRC as well as the improvement of the social situation of the population would only be utopian without a clear electrification plan and concrete actions in this sector.
Thus, it is essential that all players in the electricity sector and anyone concerned about the development of the DRC reflect on how the electrification of the country should be approached in practice, so that by 2024 the country's electrification rate is growing significantly in order to achieve the vision of the Head of State.
Given the various challenges encountered in this sector, we believe that this problem should be approached from two angles:
- Centralized high-power solutions (Hydroelectric power plants)
These solutions are more conducive to promoting the development of heavy industry, mining and the tertiary sector.
However, if we consider the disparity of rural areas in the DRC, a centralized approach by extending the electricity network cannot be economically viable because the investment cost is enormous. The costs of transmission infrastructure are very high so that the return on investment would not be attractive.
We should also remember that the centralized approach cannot be envisaged in the short term. Centralized electrification projects require a huge amount of time, from the project phase to the actual connection of households.
They are therefore not necessarily suitable when it comes to improving the electrification rate in such a short time.
As engineer Nestor Mwemena, honorary CEO of Snel, says in his book TOTAL ELECTRIFICATION OF THE DRC ON THE HORIZON 2060:
“As the electricity industry is highly capital-intensive, the necessary capital it needs is significantly higher than the financial resources likely to be self-generated by a public electricity company like SNEL, which is running huge deficits. financing that can only be met by State subsidies and external loans. It is therefore important to find other sources of investment and to consider, to do so, new legal institutional mechanisms for the public-private partnership”
So Snel alone cannot meet the challenges of residential electrification in the DRC for the obvious reasons mentioned above.
- Residential electrification.
The Atlas of Renewable Energies of the DRC informs us that the energy needs of households (residential sector) are estimated at around 4000 MW. Yet only 0.5 to 3% of these needs are met. The available energy is primarily oriented towards the production activities existing in each province (mainly the mining sector, small processing and the tertiary sector).
One of the significant avenues would be decentralized systems such as mini solar power plants and solar kits for domestic use in order to significantly accelerate the rate of residential electrification, especially in rural areas where energy needs are not not huge.
The advantage of these solutions being the speed of deployment, flexibility and contribution to the rapid creation of local jobs.
The biggest challenge facing these solutions remains the high cost of the systems, which in most cases does not correspond to the purchasing power of the populations, which remains very low, especially in rural areas. This high cost is due, among other things, to the high cost of imports and the tax burden on private actors operating in the sector. To this must be added the difficulties and logistical costs related to the state of the country's infrastructure.
Following these constraints, private operators in this sector find themselves asphyxiated.
Fortunately, some government decisions have begun to be made in this sector, thus demonstrating a clear political will to promote a regulatory and legal framework likely to encourage private initiatives. Among these decisions, we can cite:
- Law No. 14/011 of June 17, 2014 relating to the electricity sector
- Decree No. 16/013 of April 21, 2016, on the creation, organization and operation of the Electricity Sector Regulatory Authority, ARE in Acronym.
- Decree No. 16/014 of April 21, 2016, establishing, organizing and operating the National Electrification Agency and Energy Services in rural and peri-urban areas, ANSER in acronym.
- The approval of the advantages of the Investment Code by the National Agency for the Promotion of Investments (ANAPI), although we are convinced that the Agency can do even more, for example by extending these benefits over a longer period. This should make it possible to attract more investors in this sector where the profitability of projects is not obvious in the short term.
- The signing of some public-private partnerships. Example of the memorandum of understanding signed in January 2020 between the government of the DRC and the company Bboxx Capital RDC, on the sidelines of the United Kingdom – Africa Summit.
The Mwinda fund supported by ANSER is also another example. We believe that this type of project should play a key role in the realization of the vision of the Head of State to bring the rate of electrification of the DRC to 30% by 2024.
Bangladesh could serve as an example in this area.
In 15 years, Bangladesh has been able to connect more than 4 million rural households, or more than 20,000 connections per month using solar home systems (Solar Home System: SHS). This success being the result of very affordable prices adapted to the purchasing power of the populations thanks to the support of a financing organization for the development of Bangladesh and a solid partnership with the World Bank, having financed the project until 'to the tune of 400 million US dollars.
For more details of this Bangladeshi project, I would highly recommend the document “Living in the Light: The Bangladesh Solar Home Systems Story”.
Not far from our borders, in Africa, Togo is on the same path, thanks to a solid partnership between the government and private operators working in the sector of solar home systems. State support thus makes it possible to accelerate the electrification of the inhabitants of rural areas, since they can acquire these solar kits at sufficiently low prices which correspond to their purchasing power. The objective of the Togolese government is to electrify more than 550,000 households through this project.
We can cite several other examples in Africa such as Kenya, Rwanda and many others.
The DRC can draw inspiration from these examples of success to achieve its ambitious objectives of significantly improving the rate of access to electricity in the next 2 years. All that is needed is a firm political will accompanied by concrete actions such as the Mwinda Fund, tax relief and other subsidies for private operators. This should enable them to accelerate expansion across the country, with the corollary of creating several thousand jobs along the way.
By Chare-Cadet Lwanyi
Electrical Civil Engineer and Director of Operations at Bboxx Capital RDC