Democratic Republic of Congo installs solar air conditioner

Sun Plus, a unit of The Sandi Group (TSG), has launched construction work on a 600-MWp solar plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is part of an even larger project totalling 1 GWp. The two-phase scheme, known as the Kinshasa Solar City, includes the installation of a number of solar photovoltaic (PV) parks near the capital of the country.

Solar In addition to hydropower, the DRC possesses significant potential for solar energy, offering a potential of 70 GW with noticeably high solar radiation averaging 6 kWh/m 2 /day.

Despite the DRC's immense endowment of varied renewable energy potential which includes hydroelectric, biomass, solar, wind and geothermal power, the current installed generating capacity is approximately 2,844 MW, providing access to merely 19% of its nearly 85 million-strong population.

The public version of the resulting report of the effort is available here. The Democratic Republic of Congo's national electric-ity access rate is estimated at 19%. Less than 1% of the rural population and 41% of the urban population has energy access. Of the country's 10 million house-holds, only 1.6 million have have access to electricity.

Wind Meanwhile, potential for wind energy in the DRC is also significant and largely untapped. Offering a potential of 15 GW, with wind speeds averaging 6-6.6m/s throughout the country, there are a number of high potential areas where wind power could be leveraged across the country.

The DRC aims to connect 32% of the country to elec-tricity by 2030. Meeting this challenge will require co-ordinated efforts from various stakeholders, support-ive policies and regulations, and technical assistance support to prospective projects in order to attract in-vestments.