Kamoa-Kakula switches on Africa's first solar-and-battery baseload plant

A solar photovoltaic and battery storage facility built by CrossBoundary Energy for Kamoa Copper reached commercial operation on 12 August 2026, delivering 30MW of round-the-clock renewable baseload power to the Kamoa-Kakula copper complex in the DRC. The facility combines a 233MWp solar array with a 123MVA/526MWh battery energy storage system, allowing it to keep supplying power after dark rather than only during daylight hours — what the industry calls firm, or baseload, renewable power.

Kamoa Copper, a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines, Zijin Mining Group and the DRC government, signed the power purchase agreement with CrossBoundary Energy in April 2025, meaning the project reached commercial operation just 16 months later. The industry average for a solar-battery project of similar scale in Africa is closer to 29 months from signing to commissioning, making Kamoa-Kakula's roughly 13 months ahead of that benchmark.

Executives call it a milestone

CrossBoundary Energy project development director Gracia Munganga said "achieving this milestone with Kamoa Copper S.A. is a significant step to mainstreaming round-the-clock renewable power," while the company's chief technical officer, Richard Stanford, said the project had "set a new benchmark for what is achievable for renewable energy deployment." Kamoa Copper managing director Annebel Oosthuizen said "the new facility by CrossBoundary Energy will help power our planned growth in copper production," and project manager Auguy Bakome said the plant "shows that solar and battery storage can deliver dependable, sustainable and cost-effective baseload power."

Part of a diversified power strategy

The solar-battery plant adds to a power mix at Kamoa-Kakula that already includes hydropower delivered from the refurbished Inga II dam via DRC utility SNEL, which is separately being ramped up toward 100MW and eventually 150MW. Together, the two sources are intended to give the copper complex — and its newly commissioned on-site smelter — a more reliable and lower-carbon electricity supply than relying solely on the DRC's constrained national grid. For a mining industry across the DRC and Zambia that has repeatedly cited unreliable power as a constraint on expansion, Kamoa-Kakula's rapid deployment of firm solar-battery power offers a template other miners are likely to study closely.

Sources

• CrossBoundary Energy: Africa's first solar and battery baseload facility reaches commercial operation in record time, signalling a new era for round-the-clock renewable power, 25 Aug 2026
• The Star (Kenya): DRC solar battery project begins operations at Africa's largest copper mine, 26 Aug 2026

Photo: A copper mining site in the Kolwezi area of the Democratic Republic of Congo's copperbelt, near the Kamoa-Kakula complex. Rob Mieremet / Anefo, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.