Geothermal power plant to add 150 Megawatts

By Anne Mugisa            
                                                                                                                                                     
The Government has signed a power purchasing agreement with an American infrastructure firm which is to construct a 150 megawatt geothermal power plant at Katwe in Kasese in Western Uganda.

The power will be contributed to the national power grid in about two years when the construction of the US1.2bn dollar project is expected to be completed. AAE is partnering with Katwe Geothermal, who are the local partners.

The agreement was signed Thursday by the Minister of Energy, Irene Muloni and the Director of the California based AAE Systems, Bryan Jones, at the Minister's Board Room.

According to Muloni AAE will sell the power to Uganda cheaply at eight American cents per kWh, which she said is the cheapest in the market.

However, this may not bring down the power tariffs at the consumer level because, according to Muloni and the Energy Permanent Secretary Kabagambe Kaliisa, funds are still needed to expand power infrastructure and have more users connected.

The two explained that currently only about 13 percent of the population is connected to power while the remaining 87 need it but are unable to have it.

Muloni said that the project is encouraging for the country because the government wants to encourage renewable sources of energy instead of depending on hydropower which is dependent on water levels and thermal power which is expensive to make.

Geothermal electricity is electricity generated from geothermal energy using technologies including dry steam power plants, flash steam power plants and binary cycle power plants. Geothermal electricity generation is currently used in 24 countries with the largest users as the USA, Philippines and Indonesia.

It is considered sustainable power because it draws from the heat from the earth's massive content. And according to Muloni, this could be developed to ease the country's power problems.