Electricity demand to increase five-fold by 2025

Jul 07, 2007

UGANDA will require about 22,500 mega watts of electricity to satisfy the demand of the 42 million people by 2025. Daudi Migereko, the energy minister, said Uganda as an industrialised country in 2025, will consume 3,000 kilo watts per hour of electricity per capita, up from the current 60 kilo wat

By Ibrahim Kasita

UGANDA will require about 22,500 mega watts of electricity to satisfy the demand of the 42 million people by 2025. Daudi Migereko, the energy minister, said Uganda as an industrialised country in 2025, will consume 3,000 kilo watts per hour of electricity per capita, up from the current 60 kilo watts per hour. This will require extra 126,000 giga watts per hour.

“The Government’s strategy on power supply is to anticipate demand and not to chase demand,” he said.

“Power supply should be determined by the country’s vision to transform its society from a peasantry one to an industrialised nation by 2025,” he added.

Migereko said the traditional load-forecasting is pre-industrial and the methods are based on pre-industrial scenarios like the slow growth of gross domestic product and low levels of consumption.

The minister said the BKS Acres projection put the high peak demand at 345 mega watts in 2005 and 1,919 mega watts in 2025 for a population of about 45 million people. BKS Acres are the Canadian consultants who worked on a regional power master plan.

“The current estimated demand is 380 mega watts at peak hours and 280 mega watts during off peak hours.
“All consumers who want power cannot be served even if there was no drought,” Migereko explained.

Drought had been blamed for low generation at the Jinja dams.
The demand projections, he said, were based on pre- industrial assumptions.
“Any slight industrial or commercial developments chock the power supply,” he added.

“The deficit leads to massive load-shedding.
“There is need to address the shortage,” he said.

The minister was on Thursday presenting a paper on “Uganda’s current and future generation capacity” at a regional power conference at the Imperial Resort Beach Hotel, Entebbe.

Eriya Kategaya, the First Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister In-charge of the East Africa Cooperation, opened the summit, aimed at promoting the East Africa interconnection power plan.
Kategaya said integrating the power market would lead to reliable electricity supply at affordable prices.

The current hydropower generation at the Kiira and Nalubale dams in Jinja stands at 140 mega watts out of an installed capacity of 400 mega watts.

The thermal production at Lugogo is at 100 mega watts while another 50 mega watts is expected at the Mutundwe thermal plant by October.

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