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OPINION

Olive Atuhaire

By Olive Atuhaire

Editor, between November 30 to December 12, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be hosting UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) under the theme, “transitioning to clean energy”. This is one of the targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1.5°C by 2030 as stipulated under the Paris Agreement.

At the Africa Climate Summit 2023 held in Nairobi in September 2023, energy efficiency was highlighted as a cost-effective solution to expand energy access across the continent.

During a high-level event on energy efficiency, African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy Dr Amani Abou-zeid noted that energy efficiency is the cleanest form of energy available and added that transmission losses due to inadequate energy infrastructure are a major contributor to the electricity access deficit in Africa.

However, from the summit, nothing was done and most people are still facing energy inefficiency in different African countries Uganda inclusive.

According to the new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), it indicated that Electricity grids are ‘weak link’ in clean energy transition yet Enerdata shows that the global final energy consumption is projected to increase from the 19% in 2021 to 31% in 2040 under a considered sustainable development scenario.

The report shows that achieving all national climate and energy goals will require adding or replacing 80 million km of power lines by 2040, an amount equal to the entire existing global grid according to a country by country analysis carried out in the report.

The report shows that Africa’s sprawling cities have erratic supplies of electricity, but large swaths of the continent's rural areas have no power at all.

In 2021, 43% of Africans, about 600 million people lacked access to electricity with 590 million of them in sub‐Saharan Africa and as of 2020, however, more than 18 million Ugandans (58% of the total population) continue to live without access to electricity (ESMAP) limiting the country's potential for economic growth and human development.

Power shortages remain the biggest challenge to Africa, especially in Uganda's electricity sector considering that over half of the population lives below the poverty line and this needs to be addressed to improve on people’s standards of living.

Last week on November 20, 2023 the media reported that power blackout in Eastern region Uganda have reached an alarming level in the recent months affecting every facet of life forcing businesses to rely on generators which are relatively expensive and leave those who cannot afford generators quit businesses and become jobless.

It is said the cause of the power black outs is system breakdowns due to natural hazards an aging electricity infrastructure, electricity thefts, vandalism of transmission and distribution infrastructure which needs to be tickled.

In 2016, the same issue of power outage happened in Gulu district when Lalogi a trading centre with a population of roughly 1,300 in Northern Uganda was electrified through the national grid, people were very excited living in near trading centres and Godfrey was among those who seized the productive potential of electricity not long after the grid’s arrival and managed to start up a welding workshop selling metals that he manufactured himself.

He noted that his business depended on a regular supply of electricity and it was unfortunate for him when the electric grid began to show signs of unreliability only in six months after the first connections in Lalogi were made. From then on, frequent and prolonged power outages became the standard for Lalogi’s electricity consumers, especially business people. However, this all shows that Ugandans still face a lot of challenges in energy sector which leads to unemployment and poor standards of living.

According to energy data, it is noted that electricity accounts for only 2% of the total final energy consumption with biomass and fossil fuels accounting for 88% and 10% respectively which shows that electricity in Uganda could either be inadequate, inaccessible, unreliable, unaffordable or a socially un preferable form of energy even though the government receives increasingly positive ratings of its performance on providing reliable electricity, probably attributable to its policies and programs designed to improve access to electricity.

These findings point to the need to address implementation challenges of existing electricity access plans and policies in order to accelerate the pace of gains in access to bridge the supply-demand gap and provide energy alternative to use for people that is stable, reliable and cheap to avoid power outages.

Even though government's strategy to increase power generation and supply exists, Uganda still experiences regular power outages and has one of the lowest electrification rates in the world bringing electricity to more than 40 million.

Despite significant efforts over the last 20 years, the rate has remained low around 24% however much the government is trying many approaches including establishing monopolies in the transmission and distribution sectors in some areas and most of these approaches have failed to deliver affordable, reliable and accessible electricity to the majority of Ugandans.

All this shows that the power supply system remains inadequate, faulty and inefficient in Africa and most especially in Uganda due to stunted growth in generation capacity, poor transmission and delivery, distribution infrastructure and poor commercial utility practices which needs to be addressed.

Goal seven of the UN general assembly on Sustainable Development Goals adopted in September 2015 requires countries to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030. This goal comes at a time when Uganda like the rest of the developing world is experiencing rapid urbanisation and a radical shift from wood fuels to charcoal consumption.

Data from the ministry of energy indicates that urban centers consume about 1.8million tones of charcoal annually, this and the exclusivity of wood fuel use in rural areas among other reasons makes Uganda lose more than 90,000 hectares of trees annually with only 7,000 hectares replenished.

The report indicates that biomass energy demand may hit 135 tones up from the current 44million tonnes by 2040, the country will then run out of energy sources in the next few years because of population pressure.

This means that if the Government does not provide alternatives like renewable energy people are going to suffer as they cannot afford the high tariffs imposed on electricity

Therefore, the COP28 conference participants must look into considering energy alternative like renewable energy which is affordable, reliable and cheaper for both urban and rural populations to use and does not contribute to methane release via fugitive gas emissions which causes climate change and degrades our environment. 

The Government must ensure a strong energy infrastructure to drive energy transition by prioritising investment in renewable energy sources, promoting innovation in energy technology, fostering international cooperation for infrastructure development and incentivising the transition to cleaner and implement efficient power distribution systems.

Ensuring a strong energy infrastructure to drive to energy transition is crucial for the country’s success to address energy challenges and achieve Goal 7 which is among the SDGs target of 2030. This will help in increasing efficiency of energy production, distribution and consumption as a win-win which will boost the development while mitigating climate change impacts and improving on people’s standards of living.

Additionally involving policy frameworks, financial support and collaborative efforts among nations and private sectors to improve energy infrastructure resilience and sustainability must be considered.

The writer is AFIEGO Research Associate, Atuhaireolivia72.ao@gmail.com