Uninterruptible power supply for the Democratic Republic of Congo s power system

The main priority for the Democratic Republic of Congo's power sector is to increase access to electricity. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a large country with 10 million households of which 1.6 million have access to electricity. This makes it the third largest population in the world without access to electricity.

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.

All segments of electricity demand are severely constrained by supply. Most demand in the residential sector is unmet, partly because DRC has one of the largest deficits in electricity access in the world and high geographical disparities (see chapter 2 for information about access). So is industrial demand.

This makes it the third largest population in the world without access to electricity. If electrification efforts follow the same pace as during the last decade, 84 million people – or 80% of total population – will still live without electricity in the DRC by 2030.

Energy poverty is at-tributed to factors such as cost tariffs, poor utility per-formance and lack of financial viability, compounded by governance issues. There is no interconnected national power transmis-sion network in the DRC, which is instead structured into three independent interprovincial grids.

There is no interconnected national power transmis-sion network in the DRC, which is instead structured into three independent interprovincial grids. The western and southern grids are connected by a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) line. The eastern grid is more remote and will not be be connected.