Africa’s largest copper mine is now running on solar baseload power thanks to a large-scale solar-plus-storage power plant.
The Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex, located in the Central African Copperbelt near Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been powered by a 233 MW solar plant coupled with a 123 MVA/526 MWh battery energy storage system since the facility entered commercial operation on Aug. 12. The system provides the copper complex with a continuous 30 MW power supply, with output currently peaking at 55 MW.
The facility is owned and operated by project developers CrossBoundary Energy, with Germany’s Dhybrid Power Systems GmbH responsible for engineering the battery system and providing the facility’s control platform.
Figures provided by Dhybrid state that during its first month of operation, the facility displaced around 4 million liters of diesel, worth roughly $11 million.
The project combines over 357,000 solar modules from Aiko, Sungrow solar inverters and medium-voltage stations, battery containers from Risen SYL and EPC Power power conversion systems.
Dhybrid says its universal power platform (UPP) acts as the central control layer for the entire plant, coordinating the solar and battery inverters, power quality meters, protection relays, meteorological sensors, UPS and HVAC units and managed network switches, equating to over 1,300 devices in total.
A statement from the company explains the UPP’s forecasting algorithm tells the operator twenty-four hours ahead what the plant can deliver. “The operator sets the value, and the platform decides every second how to split up to 180 MW of solar between the mine and the batteries, how far to charge for the night, and how to hold the setpoint through cloud cover and load swings,” the statement explains. “The customer only sees constant power output.”
Dhybrid has been awarded a contract to expand the battery system by a further 35 MWh, to an installed capacity of 561 MWh, with targeted commercial operations in January 2027.
The complex has also set a target of raising its on-site solar baseload capacity to 120 MW within 18 months.
The project is the DRC’s largest operational solar asset, according to figures available in the Africa Solar Industry Association’s (AFISA) project database. The database lists a total 1,381 MW of operational solar in the country, alongside a further 132 MW under construction.
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