Angola signs its interconnector contracts with the DRC, and a second import route starts to take shape.

For a large power user in the Southern African Power Pool, a further route for cross-border electricity trade has moved from intention to signed contract, without yet moving a megawatt. Angola's transmission company, RNT-EP, signed a concession contract and an electricity supply contract for export on 30 September, covering the building and running of northern and eastern interconnectors between Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for a privately funded project of the promoter Somagec Energy Holding that carries no public debt for the Angolan state or for the transmission company, on a build, own, operate and transfer basis. The signatures followed approval by the President of the Republic of Angola in two presidential decrees, numbered 115/26 of 2 July and 141/26 of 11 August.

The northern package takes in a 400 kV link from Soyo to Matadi and Inga, and a 60 kV link from Cabinda to Moanda. The eastern package takes in a 400 kV link running from Capanda through Xa-Muteba and Luau to Kolwezi. The transmission company says the works would place Cabinda on Angola's national electricity system by way of the connection to the DRC and its PEAC market.

The commercial motive is set out in the same release: export revenue is meant to broaden the company's income, loosen its reliance on the national distributor and steady its finances, alongside a wider effort to sign very high and high voltage customers directly. That effort already points south. A power purchase agreement for export to Namibia was signed in Luanda in April, under a presidential decree of 6 April, as part of selling into the SAPP market.

The implication is that this corridor adds nothing to available transfer capacity until the lines exist, so the signature shifts the medium-term import picture rather than today's wheeling options.

For large power users, a signed concession marks an import route being pursued, not one that can be contracted against. It is worth asking your supplier or the system operator what completion milestones attach to these links, and checking whether your supply agreement would let you take imported energy if a new route opens.