Develop Bujagali and Karuma concurrently
Oct 05, 2004
ELECTRICITY CONSUMERS are enduring greater levels of loadshedding as demand increases against stagnant power supply
ELECTRICITY CONSUMERS are enduring greater levels of loadshedding as demand increases against stagnant power supply.
The Uganda Electricity Distribution Company has begun a daytime shedding regime, which will, in effect, see consumers’ supply turned off at least once a day. Previously, loadshedding affected consumers only at night every two or three days.
Consumers are paying the price for the anti-Bujagali campaign by myopic, self-seeking parliamentarians and anarchic NGOs that lobbied against the construction of a new power plant at Bujagali falls. That together with a bribery scandal involving a senior government official and the subsequent pullout of a restructuring AES, the owners of the local concern, AES Nile Power, scuttled the project. Thankfully the Ministry of Energy is preparing to tender for the construction of Bujagali again. The World Bank, which was to finance most of Bujagali, had advised that that project be developed first before another one, at Karuma, hundreds of kilometres downstream, would start.
But it should be noted that demand has grown in the seven or so years that Bujagali has been in abeyance. Domestic demand continues to rise as the economy grows. New homes are being built at fantastic rates. Businesses, including heavy industry, all need steady supply. There is more demand across our borders as Kenya too loadsheds, Rwanda’s demands grow as well, and as southern Sudan is pacified.
Bujagali would generate 250megawatts, hardly sufficient to meet all this growing demand in a few years without reverting to loadshedding.
Loadshedding is not only an irritant to home consumers, but it increases business overheads and makes Uganda less attractive for local and foreign investment. Yet we do have the Karuma project, whose feasibility has already been ascertained by technical studies. The government and our multilateral supporters should now study the financial imperatives with a view to developing Bujagali and Karuma simultaneously.
The Uganda Electricity Distribution Company has begun a daytime shedding regime, which will, in effect, see consumers’ supply turned off at least once a day. Previously, loadshedding affected consumers only at night every two or three days.
Consumers are paying the price for the anti-Bujagali campaign by myopic, self-seeking parliamentarians and anarchic NGOs that lobbied against the construction of a new power plant at Bujagali falls. That together with a bribery scandal involving a senior government official and the subsequent pullout of a restructuring AES, the owners of the local concern, AES Nile Power, scuttled the project. Thankfully the Ministry of Energy is preparing to tender for the construction of Bujagali again. The World Bank, which was to finance most of Bujagali, had advised that that project be developed first before another one, at Karuma, hundreds of kilometres downstream, would start.
But it should be noted that demand has grown in the seven or so years that Bujagali has been in abeyance. Domestic demand continues to rise as the economy grows. New homes are being built at fantastic rates. Businesses, including heavy industry, all need steady supply. There is more demand across our borders as Kenya too loadsheds, Rwanda’s demands grow as well, and as southern Sudan is pacified.
Bujagali would generate 250megawatts, hardly sufficient to meet all this growing demand in a few years without reverting to loadshedding.
Loadshedding is not only an irritant to home consumers, but it increases business overheads and makes Uganda less attractive for local and foreign investment. Yet we do have the Karuma project, whose feasibility has already been ascertained by technical studies. The government and our multilateral supporters should now study the financial imperatives with a view to developing Bujagali and Karuma simultaneously.