Government wants more Ugandans to use cooking gas

ENERGY

Government is working on plans to make gas and electricity affordable for cooking. With the entry of more suppliers and distributors of cooking gas in Uganda, the price of cooking gas has fallen slightly.

Eng. Simon D'Ujanga, state minister for energy and mineral development said making cooking gas and electricity cheap will protect the environment.

"There is a need to safeguard our forests and trees from which we get firewood and charcoal for cooking. We need affordable power for consumption and reliable power for industrialisation," D'Ujanga said.

This was during the launch of the Energy and Minerals Week 2020 that started on December 1  and will end on December 4.

"In view of mitigating against accelerated deforestation, the use of alternative, clean and modern cooking solutions such as electric pressure cooking and Liquefied   Petroleum Gas (LPG) is being promoted at household level," D'Ujanga said.

D'Ujanga said increasing power generation capacity has been the focus of Government and power   will increasingly become cheaper when the 600mmw Karuma Dam comes on line next year. D'Ujanga said there would be some sector reforms in the electricity sector to improve service delivery.

The Energy and Minerals Week seeks to create awareness on the sustainable use of energy and minerals in Uganda.

The minister explained that electricity has  been  extended to  all district headquarters (with  the exception  of Kaabong district which  is expected to be complete by December 2020.

The electrification of sub-county, division, and town council headquarters and works are on going in 25 districts covering 570 sub county headquarters.

He said the target is to make sure that every household has access to electricity by 2030 using connections on the national grid, solar home systems and small isolated mini-grids to reach all Ugandans.

He explained that for on-grid connections, the Electricity Connections Policy facilitates free connections to electricity consumers within a 90-meter radius of an existing low-voltage pole.

He said before the policy, obtaining a connection attracted a minimum cost of up to sh600,000 but now the only cost to customers is an inspection fee of sh20,000.

The  energy  and  minerals  sector is  a  key  sector which contributes immensely to Uganda's economic development.

Energy such as electricity, petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and oil, and other forms including solar, wind, firewood, charcoal and geothermal drive production.

Some  of  the mineral    resources    Uganda    is    endowed    with    include phosphates that are used to make purely organic fertilisers for agricultural use, copper and cobalt in Kilembe, iron ore, gold, uranium and many other minerals which can be exploited to benefit our country.

The minister said that when   Karuma power plant   is commissioned   and   fully absorbed it is expected that the weighted generation tariff  will  reduce  from  the  current  US  Cents 6.47/kWh  (sh243.43) to US cents 5.34/kWh (h200.93), representing a reduction of 17.45%.23.

He noted that the  target of  5  US  cents per  unit of  electricity has already been achieved during off-peak hours   for   extra-large consumers.  This  was  possible  following  the  conclusion  of refinancing  Bujagali Hydro  Power  Plant where the tariff reduced  from 10.1 US cents to 8.3 US