Kinshasa, June 24th; 2025 (CPA) – An increase of 38.9% in the number of customers supplied with electricity in 2024 compared to 2020 was observed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), revealed the Director General of the Electricity Sector Regulation Authority (Are), at the opening of ‘Energy Week’ in Kinshasa on Tuesday. ‘In low voltage (LV), the total number of customers served reached 1,496,292 at December 31st, 2024, an increase of 38.9% compared with 2020. As regards medium voltage (MV), the number of customers rose to 2,403 compared with 2020. Lastly, in high voltage (HT), a total of 78 customers were counted, representing an increase of 27.9% compared with 2020’, declared Sandrine Mubenga, Director General of Are. Ms Mubenga presented these figures at the opening of the 2nd Energy Week, when she presented the agency’s 2024 annual report. Ms Mubenga pointed out that between 2020 and 2024, annual production rose from 12,460.4 GWh to 13,625 GWh, and installed capacity increased from 2,972 MW to 3,647 MW. To this end, she recalled the various challenges presented by the partners on the first day of this week, in particular by the Managing Director of the Society national d’électricité (Snel), who highlighted several difficulties, such as the construction of dykes upstream of the Lualaba river, which is significantly reducing electricity production in the southern pool, and the war situation in the east of the country, which is making work difficult, as mentioned by the operator ‘Nuru’. ‘We have a project portfolio of around 4100 MW at the AER. So the titles we have given, if they are executed, will add 4,000 MW, which will help a lot. But we need to do more (…) With the meetings we had this morning, I think there are synergies that can be put in place with the miners where, at a certain point, instead of increasing imports, we reduce imports so that we can give priority to local production, so that we can ensure the energy sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Congo. So we’re trying to work along these lines to reduce the energy deficit’, Sandrine Mubenga reassured us.
The DRC: a favorable environment for all kinds of opportunities
Deputy Chief Executive Officer Marco Kuyu pointed out that the DRC covers an area of 2,345,000 km², with a wealth of agro-pastoral and mining resources to be exploited and transformed, and almost every conceivable source of primary energy in the world. ‘It also has a population of over 100 million. So, as you can imagine, we’re talking about a huge market in which the supply of electricity does not currently match the demand from industry and households. So it’s an environment that is conducive to all kinds of opportunities, all kinds of daring business ventures’, he revealed. The deputy general manager explained that the aim of this activity is to promote the optimal exercise of the sector’s activities by operators, but also the safe use of electricity by the population. For his part, Fabrice Lusinde, Managing Director of Snel, outlined his company’s achievements in the electricity sector. ‘More than 100,000 new customers and 1,000,000 inhabitants have been connected, new projects are underway, debt reduction policy: reduction of 80% of local financial debt and social debt, reorganization of financial statements and external audits, elimination of arrears and payment of salaries, ‘Snel et Moi’ and Blue customer service digitalization programmers, Energy-Project to extend and rehabilitate urban networks, supply of electricity to extractive industries and the tertiary sector, contributions to the budget and financing of rural electrification projects’, he listed. This 2nd edition of ‘Energy Week’ is scheduled from June 24th to 26th in Kinshasa, with the aim of ‘Strengthening the collective dynamic around the challenges and performance of the energy sector in the DRC’. ACP/