Govt kicks off electrification of industrial parks

Four industrial parks of Namanve, Mukono, Luzira and Iganga will have their own power lines.
In a project implemented by Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL), government has injected $15m (Shs55b) in addition to $85m (Shs312b) loan from China Export Import Bank, to stabilise supply and quality of electricity to industrial parks.

“It is intended to provide adequate transmission capacity to enable provision of reliable quality and adequate power supply to small, medium and large scale industries,” Mr Mark Namungo, UETCL’s project manager electrification of industrial parks says.

Cost
In total, $100m (Shs367b) will be spent on the four industrial parks.
The project which started in 2016 and is expected to end in 2019, was created on the back of failure of the current distribution infrastructure to ably supply the proliferating industrial parks.

“The project was justified on the reason that the current existing 33kilovolts (kV) distribution infrastructure is not able to meet the required future power demand for the growing industrial parks,” he said.

President Museveni directed that 22 industrial parks be created to boost the country’s industrialisation agenda.

Currently, Kampala Business and Industrial Park, commonly known as Namanve, Luzira, Bweyogerere and Mbale among others are operational.

Power in industrial parks
Electrification of industrial parks involves constructing substations, installing transformers and transmission lines around the region.

For instance, the Namanve substation has three transformers of 70 megawatts (MW) each, meaning the substation has a total installed capacity of 210MW.

According to UETCL, the project also entails extending the electricity grid by constructing approximately 43Km of the 132kV transmission backbone.

Information from the electricity regulator indicates that the total transmission network length otherwise known as national grid by the close of 2018 stood at 2569.8Km.

Industries in the industrial parks, Ms Pamela Byoruganda, principal public relations manager UETCL, says will be moved to higher voltage transmission lines to curb unreliability of supply.

“We are moving industries from the main line that supplies domestic households to ensure they move to a line that is supplying only industries away from households,” she says adding that the move will curb unreliable power scenarios such as dimmed lights.

Distribution
Umeme is also constructing distribution lines to collect power from the UETCL substations to supply customers in the areas of Mukono and Lugazi.

“These are distribution lines that are going to be serving Mukono and Lugazi areas. We are now in the final stages of installing the power lines to pick power from the substations,” Mr Alison Atwine, Umeme’s project manager, says.

The chain in electricity moves from power generation, which are the dams from where UETCL buys the power, which it later sells to Umeme.
Umeme then sells power to the final consumers including households, commercial customers and industries.

The electrification of industrial parks comes after the commissioning of 183MW Isimba dam and the anticipated onboarding of 600MW Karuma dam in December increasing installed generation capacity to close to 1,800MW.
UETCL expects the project to increase power demand beyond the 653MW the country currently consumes.

Contractor’s experience
China CAMC Engineering Company was contracted to construct the substations. Mr Yan Guoliang, project manager China CAMC Engineering, says they have delivered over 40 substations in the country.

While construction of the substations is quick, issues of land compensation delay construction of the evacuation line.

“We can construct the substation within 12 to 18 months but transmission lines are a serious [problem]. Way leaves which are the scope of UETCL make us wait because we cannot encroach on someone’s land. We have no access to the Luzira line and some other lines are constructed in bits,” he says explaining that they have to warm up the machines for maintenance.

In response, Ms Byoruganda says the evacuation line’s pathway through Luzira is in a wetland (Nakivubo wetland) where people have land titles.

“We are now trying to figure out with the responsible authorities whether they were acquired legitimately or fraudulently,” she says.

Industries
The four industrial parks house industries such as Tian Tang Industrial Park, Steel and Tube, Tembo Steels among others.

A power demand forecast by UETCL 6 years ago indicated that Mukono would need 140MW.
But currently, potential demand from the region, Mr Namungo says, is over 150MW.