Lubumba grid connection cuts diesel consumption by 74% and restores power to 21,000 households

Quintel has completed a co-funded rebuild of 84 kilometres of transmission line and a 220 kV substation serving its Lubumba copper-cobalt operation in Lualaba Province, in partnership with the national electricity utility.

Grid supply now meets 88% of the operation’s demand. Diesel consumption has fallen from 38.2 million litres in 2023 to a forecast 9.9 million litres in 2025, a reduction of 74%, with a corresponding reduction of approximately 76 kt CO₂e a year in Scope 1 emissions.

The same line restored reliable supply to three towns along its route, serving an estimated 21,000 households that had been dependent on intermittent or informal supply. Distribution within those towns was rebuilt by the utility under the terms of the partnership.

The project was structured so that the transmission assets are owned by the utility rather than by Quintel, with the group recovering its contribution through a tariff mechanism over eleven years. That structure was chosen deliberately: an operation that owns the line that feeds the town it works in acquires a form of leverage over that town which the group does not want to hold.

“We were burning thirty-eight million litres of diesel a year to make metal for the energy transition, and everybody involved knew how that sounded,” said Dr Amina Chérif, Chief Sustainability Officer. “Fixing it required us to invest in infrastructure we do not own, in a country where that is not a comfortable thing to do. It was still the right structure.”