Congo: Scaling-up renewable energy in Africa: Democratic Republic of Congo

Introduction

In this edition of the Scaling-up renewable energy in Africa series of publications, we focus on the climate change investment policies and opportunities in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the energy sector. This briefing is a high-level compilation of key policies and projects, based on publicly available sources, and is not intended to be comprehensive.

Key points on Democratic Republic of Congo

• DRC has a population of 73,670,000
• Per capita emissions are very low, at 0.30tCO2e per capita per year
• The tropical rainforest of the Congo Basin is the world's second largest, after South America's Amazon Rainforest. The Basin, extending over 3,832,400 km² is situated in the heart of the African tropics, the DRC is home to the greatest expanse of rainforest in all of Africa
• In the decade from 1990 to 2000 alone, over 20,000 square miles of the DRC's forests were wiped away. In the current decade, the DRC's rainforest has been shrinking, on average, by 319,000 hectares (over 1200 square miles) annually.¹
• It has been estimated that reducing the deforestation rates observed in the previous decade by 50 percent by 2050 would avoid the release of up to 50 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere, a number equivalent to 6 years worth of emissions from burning fossil fuels at current rates.²
• Due to a lack of diversification of power sources, the energy sector remains highly dependent on ligneous fuels (wood, charcoal, plant resides, etc,) which accounts for more than 85 percent of total use.
• 8 percent of the country's energy needs are met via biomass. This is fast becoming a major factor in destruction of DRC's forests.³

UNFCCC/Kyoto Protocol

The Democratic Republic of Congo is in the process of implementing the UNFCCC. Within the framework of its Initial National Communication, it has undertaken studies on the country's vulnerability and adaptation strategy in priority areas such as water resources, agriculture and coastline.⁴

DRC's National Communication recognises the need to improve access to clean energy for domestic, residential or transport needs and industrial activities. It aims to achieve this by reducing the dependence on fuels and derivatives, improving electricity generation and distribution, substituting fossil fuel energy by renewable energy source and incorporating the policies of using clean technologies in the transport sector and promoting biogas technology and the rational use of energy.

The National Communication touches on DRC's energy use and deforestation:

Biomass

This includes firewood, coal and industrial waste. Almost all rural households use wood from forests and savannas which constitutes 98 percent of the fuel at a rate of 1m³ timber / cap / year, from 26 to 52kg wood/household/month.

With regard to major towns in the study area namely Matadi and Boma - and other major areas such as Moanda and Kitona, statistics (from 1983) of wood fuel consumption are summarised in the table below:

The annual supply of firewood was therefore in the range of 3,000,000 m³ for the whole of the province of Bas-Congo, which resulted in an annual rate of deforestation of 5,000 ha of forest (operated on a cycle 30 years).

However, the increasing demand for firewood and coal by a population impoverished by years of socio-economic crisis means that the present rate of deforestation will lead to a high level of deforestation which is even more enhanced in the mangrove marine park which has lost 35 percent of its surface due to anthropogenic pressure.

Electricity

The two major towns (Boma and Matadi) and some villages in the study area benefit from the hydroelectric power provided by dams Inga I and Inga II where production for the whole country is estimated respectively at 3866 GWh / year and 12,474 GWh / year. While Moanda, cited as having a huge tourism potential, located 241 km of road west of Matadi, is itself, subject to the production of a thermal power station of 1,600 kW, with an irregular output, often plunging the town into darkness. This forces people to often use wood and coal leading to the serious consequence of excessive deforestation of mangroves.

In 1985, the consumption of energy for Matadi, Mona and Moanda was 17,544,928 KWH, 8,353,467 KWH and 1,857,177 KWH respectively.

Fossil fuels (oil)

It is mainly used in the transport sector, the production of electricity, industry, households, fishing and agriculture, and the service industry.

Solar Energy

The use of this type of energy is very low in the country in general and in the study area in particular. Only a few households and service industry homes use solar panels.⁵

The National Communication also provides several priority options for achieving sufficient and stable energy in residential areas, improving energy efficiency and clean means of transport.

CDM projects

There are currently two CDM projects registered in Democratic Republic of Congo.⁶ As the Democratic Republic of Congo is a Least Developed Country, the CERs issued from CDM projects registered in DRC after 31 December 2012 will be eligible for compliance under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme.

ICTs for climate change mitigation

One of the UN Millennium Development Goals is to make the benefits of new technologies - especially information and communications technologies (ICTs) – available to both industrialised nations and developing regions. With these goals in mind, many projects have been founded by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and other organisations with the aim of looking into ICTs and climate change.⁷

Climate Change Legislation

DRC has no National Climate Change Policy and Strategy that presents DRC's current and future efforts to address climate change vulnerability and adaptation. It currently relies on environment-related policies and action plans to implement climate change initiatives and activities. Nevertheless, several NGOs and donor agencies have been active in the DRC to develop an administrative structure to address the needs of environmental protection and natural resources management.

Law n° 11/009 on the fundamental principles relating to environmental protection

Following the United Nations Conferences on the Environment in Stockholm and Rio de Janeiro, the DRC brought in Law 11/009 of 9 July 2011, setting out the fundamental principles related to environmental protection. The law fixes the institutional framework as well as the procedural and financial mechanisms of the environmental protection; it establishes the rules of the natural resources management and conservation, and regulates the civil responsibility in this matter by providing for the infringements and sanctions.

Semi-Urban and Rural Electrification Project

DRC has the 4th highest hydro-electric power potential in the world, with 600 billion kWh and about thirty power stations mainly located in Katanga and in the Bas-Congo. Almost 2.5 percent of this potential is currently tapped.

Hydroelectricity provides more than 96 percent of electricity generated in DRC. More than half of the exploitable capacity is at the Hyd'Inga facility. The long distance between this site and users has had a negative impact on electrification of villages and towns across the country as due to DRC's size (four times that of France), it requires thousands of kilometres of electricity lines to reach users. As a result, the electrification rate is just 6 percent.⁸

In line with its strategy to boost energy infrastructure to accelerate Africa's development, the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group approved in December 2010, a grant of USD 106.6 million to the DRC, to finance the country's rural and semi-urban electrification projects. In 2002, the World Bank also approved USD 167 million in energy support for the DRC's electricity system. The aim was to rebuild Inga Dams I & II, strengthen or add power lines, and extend power distribution to 250,000 additional people in Kinshasa.

Real change on the ground has been slow however. To date, only two of Inga's turbines have been refurbished, and power output remains at barely 40 percent of the original capacity.

REDD+ in DRC

REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) in DRC is based on 5 key principles: unique process, participative process, transparent process, scientifically robust and regionally integrated.

It is managed through six priority projects:

• coordinating catalysing
• mobilising - building capacities and capabilities (raising awareness)
• building strategy
• supplying tools for implementation
• building institutional framework
• securing funding

UN-REDD will function with Norway's financial support and with WB-FCPF being decisive players to serve the national process in DRC.⁹

In 2009, the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund purchased 500,000 tons of emission reductions from a reforestation project in the DRC, generating environmental benefits to the local community as well as social services.¹⁰

Aware of the great potential for REDD+ in the country, DRC has forged ahead from the planning to the implementation stages of REDD+ preparedness. The initial DRC National Programme, which helped launch and structure the country's national REDD+ strategy, transitioned into the full National Programme (Readiness Plan) after it was approved by the UN-REDD Programme Policy Board.¹¹

The DRC preliminarily structured its REDD+ Plan around 4 sections containing 14 distinct programmes. Through this, the DRC created the CN-REDD and launched a centralised and regional reform of its institutions; it allocated itself a legal framework governing the group of activities linked to the forest. Program 12 covers the reduction in demand for fuelwood and increase in supply through sustainable afforestation / reforestation, within the context of a coherent national energy strategy.

The REDD+ plan includes complementary programmes with two objectives:

to reduce the demand by furnishing of high efficiency ovens to urban households in order to reduced their consumption of fuelwood

to increase the supply with sustainable reforestation and afforestation projects with alternative sources of energy.¹²

The "Readiness Plan for REDD 2010-2012" published in March 2010 creates a vision for the country being "ready" by 1 January 2013, to ensure that the preliminary REDD+ objectives are met. According to this report, the Ministry of Energy finalised a document on the policy of the electric energy sector (based namely on a study of hydroelectric and solar potential), which already mentions the country's adherence to the REDD principles. Among others, one of the Ministry's objectives is to rationalise the use of wood charcoal, particularly through the CATEB (Centre d'Adaptation des Techniques Energie Bois - Centre for adapting wood energy techniques). An improved oven project (PROBEC – Programme for Basic Energy Conservation) was also scheduled to be launched in 24 communes around Kinshasa, in partnership with the Ministry of the Environment.

Footnotes

¹Friends of the Congo. (2008). The Democratic Republic of the Congo: Rainforests and Climate Change. Available at http://friendsofthecongo.org
²Ibid
³HELIO International/Dem. Rep. Congo
⁴Adaptation Learning Mechanism. (2009) The Democratic Republic of Congo. Available at http://www.adaptationlearning.net
⁵La Communication Nationale initiale de la RDC sur les changements climatiques - http://alm.atendesigngroup.com
⁶ http://cdm.unfccc.int
⁷ http://www.giswatch.org
⁸Policy DB - REEEP - The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership
⁹UN-REDD Programme. (2009). The REDD+ challenge in DRC. Available at http://unfccc.int
¹⁰Climate Change and Practice. (2009). World Bank BioCarbon Fund Supports Reforestation in Congo DRC. Available at http://climate-l.iisd.org
¹¹UN-REDD Programme. (20011). Democratic Republic of the Congo. Available at http://www.un-redd.org
¹²http://unfccc.int

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