Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, March 18, 2022— IFC has begun work with the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to bring clean, solar energy to over 1.5 million homes, businesses, schools, and clinics in the country under the World Bank Group's Scaling Mini-Grid (SMG) p Contact online >>
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, March 18, 2022— IFC has begun work with the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to bring clean, solar energy to over 1.5 million homes, businesses, schools, and clinics in the country under the World Bank Group''s Scaling Mini-Grid (SMG) program.
The SMG program was designed to help the DRC and other emerging countries establish public-private partnership mini-grids to bring low cost, renewable energy to consumers. In the DRC, the program expects to secure funding of $400 million this year from private investors to deploy 180 megawatts of installed solar PV capacity to the cities of Mbuji-Mayi and Kananga.
As part of the project, IFC and the DRC government partners have met with local authorities in Kasai-Oriental and Kasai-Central provinces, launched studies to assess local electricity demand in the region, and have begun identifying potential sites where solar photovoltaic (PV) plants will be installed.
Only about 19 percent of the DRC''s population had access to electricity in 2019 according to World Bank data, underscoring the urgent need for increased power production and distribution to reach consumers and meet the government''s target of connecting 30 percent by 2024.
"Renewable energy is a priority sector for the DRC government to foster growth, income generation and job creation, while supporting the ambitious goal of providing universal access to electricity," said Olivier Mwenze Mukaleng, the DRC Minister of Hydraulic Resources and Electricity. "We look forward to leveraging the WBG Scaling Mini-Grid''s platform to electrify more than 100 cities ranging from 50,000 to 3 million inhabitants across DRC''s 145 territories."
"IFC is proud to help the DRC increase electricity access through the Scaling Mini-Grid program," said Sylvain Kakou, IFC''s Country Manager for Central Africa. "Championing the power sector in Africa is crucial to spur development and the private sector will be front and center of that drive."
Green mini grids are powered by a clean energy source—usually solar PV—combined with battery storage and a local smart distribution system, and bring power to homes, industry, and businesses alike. While the market remains in its early stages, innovations in technology and business models, coupled with declining costs, are making them an increasingly relevant solution in Africa, with the potential to connect 30 percent of the Africans gaining access to electricity by 2030.
The SMG project in the DRC also features a number of innovations, including a first-of-a-kind minimum revenue guarantee that aims to help de-risk and unlock further private investments in the space.
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Gridworks, the company set up to develop and invest in electricity networks across Africa, has today welcomed the announcement that a consortium it is leading has been appointed preferred bidder for the Essor A2E Initiative ("Essor") in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Essor is an ambitious program to build greenfield hybrid solar power generation and distribution projects in three cities in northern DRC (Gemena, Bumba and Isiro), each with a population of between 130,000 and 180,000. These cities currently have no grid connection, and struggle to access reliable, affordable and clean power.
Total capital requirements for the three sites will be around US$100 million which will be funded with a mixture of investment from the consortium led by Gridworks, debt provided by lenders including development finance institutions and capital grants from donors.
Gridworks'' consortium includes Eranove, a multi-utility company that operates power generation plants and utilities in a number of countries including Cote d''Ivoire, Gabon and Togo, and AEE Power, a power developer and construction company with extensive and long-term activities in DRC.
This is an important initiative from the Government of DRC in partnership with the UK Government. It provides a replicable model with the scale and regulatory underpinning necessary to attract commercial investment in green field utilities in Africa. Distributed renewable energy projects like Essor operate using isolated local power grids which distribute power to homes and businesses from renewable sources such as solar and wind. They operate independently of the national grid.
Simon Hodson, Gridworks'' CEO, welcomed the announcement that Gridworks had been awarded preferred bidder status at a ceremony in Kinshasa this week attended by UK Minister for Africa, James Duddridge MP and the Congolese Minister for Water and Energy Eustache Muhanzi. He said:
"This Project will provide more reliable and affordable electricity in DRC, leading to economic growth and job creation, quality of life improvements and a cut in carbon emissions through the displacement of diesel generation. It will also bring power to hundreds of thousands of people who do not currently have an electricity connection.
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