Digital DRC Mining Week: Power to the mines
Last week’s Digital DRC Mining Week, three days of live webinars with the Who-is-Who of Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), included two special sessions dealing with the electricity needs of the mining sector.
The online event from June 17 to 19 was a great success and brought together experts from the Minister of Mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Prof. Willy Kitobo Samsoni, to mining pioneers like Dr. Willem Jacob and Pangea from Barrick Gold and the director of Alphamin, Boris Kamstra, were enough. Digital DRC Mining Week was organized after the live event was postponed to October 7-9 in Lubumbashi due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the right track to set up a controller
The first power-oriented webinar during the Digital DRC Mining Week was moderated by Nicolette Pombo-Van Zyl, editor of ESI Africa.
The strongest message that emerged from this discussion about energy projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was that the country needs a special energy regulator to facilitate the development of generation projects, the procurement of finance and the setting of tariffs.
“The energy sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo lacks regulation and security for licenses and concessions for energy projects,” said Raphael Khalifa, CEO of Tembo Power, based in Mauritius.
“Tembo Power operates 10 projects in Africa, all as hydropower IPPs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya and Burundi, with a total investment of half a billion dollars. He added that the lack of a regulatory authority increases the risk and therefore the cost of a project.
Serge Nawej Tshitembu, senior advisor to Geosolar in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, agreed: “We are on the right track to establish an energy regulator that will make things a lot easier, create more visibility and provide more stability for investors.”
He added that most of the energy generated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is largely renewable mostly hydropower and that there was a lot of appetite from international investors, particularly the UK, for the DRC.
Both agreed that the current estimated demand of energy in DRC is around 4,200MW.
More power to the mines
The last session of Digital DRC Mining Week was another panel discussion focused on power in the DRC, this time in French on the theme of “The light at the end of the tunnel: Progress of energy projects in the DRC”.
The DRC energy expert panellists were John Nsana Kanyoni, Directeur at Trade Power, Eric Monga Mumba, Chief Executive at Kipay Investments and Andy Sambwe, Energy Engineer at Kibali Goldmines. The session was moderated Elodie Delagneau, event director of DRC Mining Week.
