Uganda to spend billions to connect more people to power grid

NAIROBI – Uganda plans to spend at least R26.9-billion in the next five years to connect more people to its electricity grid and raise connection rates, a senior executive at sole power distributor Umeme Ltd said yesterday.

Ugandan officials say they want to boost electricity supply rapidly to power an industrialisation drive.

In recent years they have cut subsidies for consumers and introduced a tariff adjustment mechanism.

The country said last year that it planned to increase its electricity generating capacity to at least 1 500MW over the next three years from 850MW.

Sam Zimbe, deputy managing director of Umeme, said to go hand in hand with this, the country aimed to increase the number of electricity connections to 3 million in the next four years from about 900 000 at present.

“We intend to spend at least $800-million (about R10.7-billion) just on that activity alone, constructing low voltage lines, and looking at last-mile connections,” Zimbe told an East African power industry conference.

“Right now we have started the programme. In the first two years for that matter, we plan to spend at least $400 million, half that amount,” he said after his presentation.

Zimbe said the increased connections would raise the access rate to 40% of the population. It is currently standing at 20%.

Zimbe said Uganda planned to spend another $1.2-billion over the next five years to improve other infrastructure on the grid.

“That is for the backbone infrastructure, in addition to the access programmes. The backbone infrastructure entails new substations and upgrades of the medium voltage lines,” he said.

Uganda’s peak power demand is about 550MW but is growing 10% to 12% annually. –