Solar Minigrid brings light and hope to the Goma neighborhood and provides a blueprint for the rest of the Congo

Streetlights erase the shadows that attackers once hidden. Noisy, contaminated diesel generators are silent. New businesses are taking root.

In some Goma districts that have no electricity just five years ago, small solar networks are offering flickering of hope despite widespread poverty and violent city acquisitions by Congolese rebels earlier this year.

Advocates believe it can be a successful model across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, electrifying places where conflict and poverty leave people behind, and renewable energy can be used to benefit those most vulnerable to climate change.

“I remember the first night we turned on the lights on public roads, the voluntary celebrations on the streets, the people coming out of their homes and singing and dancing with our team,” said Jonathan Shaw, CEO of Nuru, the utility he started. “We just look at what this means to people… make it very moving their sense of dignity and value that someone was willing to come and invest in their lives and their community and their home (yes).”

This was 2020, three years after Shaw, a former teacher, and Congolese partner Archip Lobo Ngumba, built the DRC’s first commercial solar power generation in the small town of Beni, North Kivu province of Congo. State officials then asked to consider sesame seeds near the Rwandan border. There, only a small portion of the population could use electricity from a diesel-powered generator.

With investor support, Nuru built the 1.3-Megawatt Minigrid. Last year, it is a private company that has fought against the hydroelectric grid at Virunga National Park north of Goma, strengthening resilience, working with power phones and internet services, pumping and distributing water. Other customers include large grain factories, telephone charging stations, small cinemas and even “plug in just a small fridge to sell cold beer on the streets.”

“You’re just looking at ingenuity and scale at every level,” he said. “It was overwhelming how effective it was…it’s far beyond what I could have imagined.”

Tradeple said it was spending significantly less money when using diesel generators than before.

“With a generator, I spent $15 a day if I worked a lot. Now, along with Nuru, it’s better electricity because there’s no breakdown that requires expensive repairs.”

And residents say they have felt safer since Nuru installed street lights in Ndosho.

“No one can hide under the tree anymore,” Choma Choma Mate Banga said. “If there are suspicious people hiding, we can find them and get away.”

Protects the grid

Working in conflict zones can be dangerous, but Nuru says his experience with Goma highlights how beneficial power is in these regions.

Last year, unexploded bullets left from past conflicts were discovered on the Nuru site and one explosive solar panel. Then earlier this year, Goma was seized by Rwandan M23 militia in an attack that killed almost 3,000 people, according to UN estimates.

While Nuru’s electricity continues to flow and power in other areas is dropping, Shaw believes it is proven importance to residents.

“The only lighting in the city was our infrastructure, the only thing that powered the water and connections,” Shaw said. “I felt the whole project was worth it to be there… some of the darkest moments in people’s lives would be something we can rely on when nothing else was working.”

Null’s solar panels were occasionally hit by behind-the-scenes bullets in gunfights, said Alan Biamung Chirza, senior director of business development at Nur. “But in general… our panel is safe because the community understands it for its own interest.”

Expansion plan

Goma Experience highlights the benefits of a distributed or standalone power grid, which, according to the company, is a logical blueprint for the country’s population centers, where electrification rates are around 20%.

Nuru is building another 3.7 megawatt factory in Goma, which is about 70% complete, but is currently pending due to security circumstances. The company aims to serve 10 million Congolese people by the end of 2030.

“I feel this scales very quickly and could have an incredible impact on the Congo and beyond,” Shaw said.

Approximately 565 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack electricity, and about 85% of the world’s population shows a powerless representation. This will make off-grid solar power a “ground for Africa’s energy future” especially in rural areas, said Stephen Kansk, Africa’s regional technology advisor for the United Nations Development Programme.

It is expanding quickly, and initiatives by the World Bank and African Development Bank are expected to provide grid-off-grid solar access to around 150 million people by 2030, helping to power health clinics, schools and more.

“Solar energy… is a powerful tool for climate adaptation and resilience,” Kansk said. “Communities that bear the brunt of climate change (dorats, floods, heat waves) are often the same things that limit or have no access to reliable electricity.”

Social Values

Nuru Investors, including the Schmidt Family Foundation, launched by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, believes renewable energy infrastructure can be viable in areas where it is politically unstable. People in such regions are often least likely to have electricity, but are extremely vulnerable to the harms of climate change, and are enhanced by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

The company also sells Peace Renewable Energy Credits (P-Recs) to companies like Microsoft. These credits are tested as coming from vulnerable and conflict-affected regions, and while they are more expensive than traditional renewable energy credits, they enhance buyers’ social and environmental impacts by helping to build renewable energy infrastructure in underserved regions.

By channeling money into such areas, P-Recs “provides a rare convergence of climate action, development and peacebuilding,” said UN’s Kansuk.

They could also help change communities in many areas around the world, providing a way for businesses to support social stability, said Elizabeth Wilmott, a former independent consultant and former director of Microsoft’s carbon program.

“If businesses buy renewable energy outside of already direct grids, the perspective is why they don’t support the social and economic impact of the communities that need it the most,” she said.

The show believes that Nuru built goodwill in Congo with his first project to promote transformation.

“Unfortunately, Congo is a place where many people come with great promises,” he said. “I think people think they’re not just throwing something to turn on the bulbs. We’re really building a generational infrastructure.”

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