Umeme upgrades its systems, assures World Cup fans

Jun 06, 2014

Electricity distributing company Umeme has assured World Cup fans of continuous power supply throughout the tournament season, and even beyond that period.

By Ayiga Ondoga             

Electricity distributing company Umeme has assured World Cup fans of continuous power supply throughout the tournament season, and even beyond that period.


The World Cup games, due to take place in Brazil (South America), begin next week on Thursday.

For the football lovers, Umeme’s assurance comes after the upgrading of its control and call centres with modern equipment and technologies.

The company has also adequately trained manpower manning the two stations for constant electricity supply to consumers, on top of rectifying power supply problems countrywide.

Umeme operates under a concession with a structural monopoly on the distribution of electricity across Uganda, distributing 99% of electricity in Uganda through a single buyer model.

The system operation manager at the Umeme control centre, Sylver Hategekimana said they have upgraded their network to monitor all the substations in the country feeding the centre with any problem affecting power supply.

The distribution control centre has an around the clock monitoring controller engineers to rapidly respond to any disruptions in terms of power supply to any part of the country which connected on the grid.

“Our control engineers monitor the network 24 hours to see what is going on at the 67 sub-stations feeding the country,” said Hategekimana.

“We are able to see and identify which line or lines are off or affected in case of accidents. In case of accidents where a pole has been knocked by a vehicle, we remove the line for safety purposes so that our engineers can work on the problem.”

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Umeme control centre system operations manager, Sylver Hategekimana, explaining how the new database technology works during a tour by journalists of the station at Lugogo. PHOTO/Ayiga Ondoga

He was briefing a team of journalists who were accessing the capacity and capability of the company in providing safe, constant and stable power to its customers country wide during a tour of the Control and Call Centres at the Industrial Area on Wednesday.

Umeme had previously started operations with 30 sub-stations in 2008 but upgraded to 67 to-date with constant monitoring of the stations standing at 95%, according to Hategekimana, which has improved the efficiency of the power supply and safety.

The systems manager said their engineers respond rapidly to the problems coming to the database and rectify them immediately in order not to inconvenience the customers at the homes and work places.

“There is enough generation of power from the various hydropower dams to supply the country, especially with the coming of the World Cup in a week’s time,” he said.

The World Cup is set for a record global television audience which requires electricity for the soccer fans, thanks to the new technology.

“Before, we had big problems in identifying issues affecting power supply to the consumers but with the new system upgrade, the technology tells us what the issue is and from which particular location, ”said Hategekimana.

Daniel Humpherey Mwigo, a Umeme Call Centre supervisor, said with the upgraded system, the centre receives between 2000 to 3000 calls every day from consumers across the country.

He said many of the calls are on power off supply, power not stable or disruptions in some areas and complaints on bill rates and customers not satisfied with supply “as we loadshed due to high power demands.

“We have ready manpower to attend to emergency cases from consumers. The call attenders work for eight hours and for two shifts and the languages they use to communicate are English, Lusoga and Luganda,” he added.

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