Solar surges in DR Congo as miners demand power

DR Congo, despite its immense wealth from minerals and other natural resources, has been one of the least successful countries in the world at connecting its people to electricity. Just 21.5% of the population had access to electricity in 2024; connections are virtually non-existent apart from in the Katanga mining belt and in a handful of major cities. Yet new data on solar panel imports suggest there is hope that this dire situation could be starting to change. Figures published on Thursday by energy think tank Ember show that DR Congo has been Africa's fourth-largest importer of Chinese solar panels over the last year. Solar panel imports totalled $249m, while spending on batteries reached $429m. Ember estimates that solar installations in DR Congo will increase 544% year-on-year in 2026. It says new solar capacity added this year alone is equivalent to a remarkable 63% of existing grid generation. Mining demand The answer to what is driving DR Congo's sudden boom in solar can be found outside the Kamoa Copper mine near Kolwezi. Here, an area the size of 230 football pitches has been carpeted with 357,000 solar panels. The project, installed by CrossBoundary Energy, a developer of distributed energy systems, began commercial operation on 12 August. With rapidly rising demand for critical minerals, especially copper, companies in DR Congo's mining heartland of Katanga are straining to find sources of power that will enable them to expand. At the same time, volatility in diesel prices - especially following the outbreak of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East - gives mining giants an obvious incentive to invest in solar as a way to cut their fuel bill. The new solar facility at Kamoa boasts a 233 MW solar array. The addition of 526 MW-hour battery storage capacity means that it delivers a minimum 'baseload' of 30 MW at all times - contradicting sceptics who have long dismissed renewables as incapable of providing continuous power to a major industrial facility. "What we're showing now, in the first month of operation, is that it's working," says Richard Stanford, CrossBoundary's chief technical officer. "It does what it says on the label." Perhaps the most impressive feature of the Kamoa project is that solar panels are powering mining operations just 24 months after the mining company launched a tender for independent power producers, and only 14 months after ground was broken at the site. This is despite the logistical nightmare of transporting panels, batteries and other equipment to the Katanga mining region. CrossBoundary had to move 998 truckloads of equipment from the Port of Durban in South Africa to the mine, a journey of just over 3,000km that takes an average of 18 days per vehicle. Many similar projects are already underway. Kamoa announced in May that is has contracted another IPP, Green World Energie, to install a second solar-plus-battery scheme that will ensure another 30 MW of baseload power. Stanford tells African Business that CrossBoundary is also in discussions about expanding its facility at Kamoa, adding that the company is participating in three other tender processes for mining companies in DR Congo. "I think there will be a rush in terms of looking to replicate this model in other mines and other industrial off takers," he says. Speed and scale The rapid development of CrossBoundary's project at Kamoa highlights one of the key advantages of solar power. A solar farm uses modular designs and can make use of mass-produced equipment, meaning giant solar projects can be up and running much faster than almost any other type of energy generation infrastructure. The contrast with DR Congo's dreams of massive hydropower projects could not be greater. Plans to expand electricity production at the Inga Rapids - the site of two existing dams - have remained firmly on the drawing board for decades. The deadlock reflects the extreme complexity of securing finance and addressing social and environmental concerns for vast hydropower schemes. The World Bank announced a $250m commitment in June 2025 to help prepare the next phase of Inga's development, which could yield up to 11 GW of power. However, Albert Zeufack, the World Bank's division director for DR Congo, told African Business at the time that completing the Inga 3 dam would take "at best" another 8-10 years. Even if a project on the scale of Inga 3 is completed, actually delivering power to industries and homes will be another matter. A truly national electricity grid that can reach DR Congo's most remote towns and villages is "impossible to imagine" within the foreseeable future, says Lyza Shodu, DR Congo country lead at the non-profit Global Energy Alliance. For the time being, mini-grids and other forms of off-grid solar power offer the only feasible hope of getting power to all corners of the country. Mini-grids work in a similar way to a regular grid but on a smaller scale, typically powering a village with solar power backed-up by batteries or diesel generators. Shodu says off-grid solar will play a "dominant role" in DR Congo's efforts to achieve its ambitious goal of increasing its electrification rate to 62% by 2030. New hydropower projects, she believes, will make a major contribution only over the longer term. A growing pipeline Several of the world's largest mini-grid developers, including Madagascar-headquartered WeLight and Indian-founded Husk Power Systems, have already entered the DR Congo market. The question now is how quickly they can expand their pipelines and get panels on the ground. "Financing will become the bottleneck," says David Ekabouma, CEO of GreenMax Capital Group, the firm tasked with managing the government-backed Mwinda Fund, which is mandated to finance off-grid energy and clean cooking solutions for the country. The fund is aiming to raise $500m to support project developers with grants, concessional loans, guarantees and technical assistance. Ekabouma says active fundraising will begin early next year, though the fund has already secured commitments from the World Bank and Global Energy Alliance, and is in discussions with European development agencies. "All the donors have DRC as a top priority when it comes to energy access," he notes. While donors may be enthusiastic about mini-grids, not everyone is convinced that they are financially feasible in communities where there is little in the way of cash-generating activities. "We think that that mini-grid model isn't flexible enough to serve all the way from the lowest income customers up to those higher power users," says Luke Burras, chief operating officer at green tech company MOPO. An alternative, which MOPO is rolling out in DR Congo and several other African countries, is to rent out portable batteries of varying sizes and recharge the devices at solar-powered hubs. Burras says the very low cost of the service allows it to reach "an order of magnitude, if not three or four orders of magnitude, deeper" compared to mini-grids. In the race to electrify DR Congo, the challenges remain immense. The current electrification rate leaves around 80m people without power; and, with the population growing by around 4m a year, it is a challenge that is getting larger all the time. The country's 62% access target for 2030 appears barely plausible. Yet there is little doubt that solar can be a game changer. From vast mine sites to isolated villages, the availability of relatively cheap and easy to install solar power is offering hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.