Current Power Situation in Uganda

A number of recent studies on the power sector in Uganda have pointed to the Uganda Electricity Board's (UEB) operational difficulties and severe constraints such as the corporation's inability to provide reliable and quality customer services, power losses of some 20% and reduced earnings. Other problems are frequent power outages and voltage fluctuations which have eroded consumer confidence.

Economic growth in many sectors of the economy has been constrained by inadequate and unreliable supply of power. Businesses lose about 89 working days on average each year due to power cuts, load shedding and suppressed demand. This translates into a suppression of economic growth of about 2 % per annum.

Only 21% of the population of the main towns are connected to the grid. This reduces to 14% for smaller urban areas and less than 1% for rural areas. Rural electrification is an increasingly important issue.

UEB estimate that power demand is increasing by 2 MW per month and that peak demand is currently about 230 MW. The latest load forecasts by EDF (1998) estimate that by 2020 1153 MW of capacity will be required.

At present capacity is around 183 MW, mainly through hydropower from the Owen Falls Dam on the Nile, and this will increase by at least 80 MW when the Owen Falls Extension comes on stream. Although there are other sources of energy in Uganda, including geothermal power, these are small compared to the overall estimated hydropower resources of the Nile at 2000 MW. They are also likely to be more expensive to develop and are located further from the main sources of demand.