Congo, Dem. Rep.

Getting Electricity in

Congo, Dem. Rep.

Listed below are the procedures, time and cost required for a business to obtain an electricity connection for a newly constructed building.

The information appearing on this page was collected as part of the Doing Business project, which measures and compares regulations relevant to the life cycle of a small- to medium-sized domestic business in 183 economies. The most recent round of data collection for the project was completed in June 2011.

  • Name of Utility: Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL)
  • City: Kinshasa

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No. Procedure Time to Complete Associated Costs
1 Submit application for electricity connection and await and receive external inspection by Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL)

The application for electricity connection can be submitted online. The following documents have to be provided: Letter of intention, photocopy of identity card of the customer, photocopies of the cadastre documents, approval of the electricity connection of the warehouse. The documents do not need to be notarized. After submitting the documents, the customer has to wait for the external inspection and the estimate. For a connection in medium voltage, SNEL does not require the plans of the internal wiring.

Agency: Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL) 		7 calendar days no charge
2 Obtain approval for electricity connection (substation) at the Ministry of Energy

The customer has to get an approval for electricity connection from the Ministry of Energy.

Agency: Ministry of Energy 		7 calendar days no charge
3 Hire an electrical contractor and submit plans for private substation at Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL) and await approval of plans

The client hires an electrical contractor for the external connection works. The electrical contractor submits plans for approval at the utility.

Agency: Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL) 		7 calendar days USD 159.0
4 Electrical contractor builds private substation

A load of 140 kVA cannot be accommodated in this area by a simple hook-up and cannot be connected to the low-voltage network. The limit is 59.5 KW, or 112 Ampere. Therefore, the customer has to build a private substation to connect medium-voltage to low-voltage according to the regulation of SNEL. The customer has to buy all the material. He can buy it at any store of his choice. The works to build a substation cannot be done by a licensed electrician, but has to be done by a licensed electrical company. This company has to be licensed by the Ministry of Energy and by SNEL.

Agency: Electrical Contractor 		30 calendar days USD 35,000.0
* 5 Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL) carries out external inspection of the private substation

After the substation has been built, an inspection is conducted. The inspection is done by SNEL or the electrical contractor who built the substation. The purpose of this inspection is to check if the substation has been constructed according to security and environmental protection norms. The customer or the electrical contractor has to purchase the material for the connection and have it controlled by SNEL. The customer has to request the conformity control of the material and has to wait from the time the estimate has been paid. A person representing the customer has to be present at the control.

Agency: Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL) 		7 calendar days no charge
6 Obtain external connection works to connect substation to the network of SNEL, installation of meter and final connection

SNEL comes to the site to do the external connection works to connect the substation to the network of SNEL. The electricity has to be shut down during the connection works for the medium-voltage connection. There are costs associated with. The installation of the meter and connection works are done at the same time by the same department by SNEL. If meters are not available, the meter can be installed after the actual connection has been done, which is happening often.
The electricity starts flowing after the supply contract is signed. SNEL requests from the client a security deposit which depends on the power demand of the client.

Agency: Société Nationale d'Electricité (SNEL) 		7 calendar days USD 16,683.8
* Takes place simultaneously with another procedure.
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