President Yoweri Museveni has tasked leaders in West Nile to allocate land for industrial parks to attract investors and make use of the newly connected high-voltage electricity.
He made the remarks while commissioning the Nebbi substation and the Gulu-Nebbi-Arua transmission line in Nebbi district on Saturday.
The West Nile subregion was connected to the high-voltage national grid through the 289-kilometre transmission line that was developed at a cost of $127 million (about sh470b).
The 132kV double-circuit transmission line traverses the districts of Kole, Oyam, Omoro, Nwoya, Pakwach, Nebbi, Madi-Okollo, and Arua.
According to the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL), each of the substations at Gulu, Nebbi, and Arua comprises two 40 MVA transformers.
A combined capacity of 80 MVA at each substation means that the region will be supplied with a total of 90 megawatts. UETCL is the government agency charged with developing and operating the high voltage national grid above 66 kV.
“This commissioning marks a significant journey towards sustainable development. The West Nile region has been characterised by poor reliability and quality of power because the region has relied on independent power producers. This 132 kV transmission line will reinforce power supply in West Nile,” Kwame Ejalu, UETCL board chairman, said.
Museveni described circumstances under which the government delayed extending the high-voltage national grid to the West Nile, saying the region had for long registered low electricity consumption, with peak demand going as low as 2 megawatts.
With this, he explained, it was both economically and technically unsustainable to extend the high voltage national grid to the region.
“There was a 33 kV distribution line up to Kole in the Lango subregion with a weaker current. The demand in West Nile was 2 MW or less. The problem was that 33 kV couldn’t push power to the West Nile because of the longer distance.
“If you extend a 132 kV line when the demand is only 2 MW, like the one that has been installed here (Nebbi substation), who will consume the rest? It’s not economics, and I don’t even know if it’s technically right,” Museveni said.
The Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) chief executive officer, Eng. Ziria Waako, explained that extending such a network amidst low demand of 2 MW would generate a high voltage at the substation, which would result in the grid operator incurring other costs to manage it in order to make the power usable.
“We need to consume this power; otherwise, we shall incur another cost of managing the voltage because, at 132 kV, the distance between the line and the ground naturally generates an overvoltage,” Waako explained.
It was against this background that Museveni urged the leaders in the region to allocate land for industrial purposes.
“With this power, we shall be able to confidently attract factories. There is a lot of power waiting to be used. What I recommend is to develop an industrial park in West Nile near the power plant so that investors don’t have to come and waste time looking for land.
They have somewhere else they can go. Uganda is not the only place on earth. The leaders should get land where to put this industrial park. Then, it will move quickly to consume the 90 MW,” Museveni said.
According to West Nile Rural Electrification Company (WENRECo), the subregion’s peak demand is seasonal and oscillates between 5.7 MW and 6.8 MW over the 12 months of the year, while the lowest demand ranges between 1.8 MW and 2.4 MW throughout the year.
Eng. Abdon Atwine, the rural electrification commissioner at the ministry of energy and mineral development, said that this demand is projected to grow to 10 MW in a year’s time.
Irene Batebe, the permanent secretary at the ministry, said earlier in the week that the region’s demand is projected to grow up to 30 MW in five years with the extension of the national grid and the implementation of the government’s different last mile connectivity initiatives, like the Electricity Access Scale-up project.
According to Kenneth Kigumba, the general manager of the West Nile Rural Electrification Company (WENRECo), the Nyagak source supplied power to the Nyapea, Warr, Vurra, Arua, Maracha, and Yumbe segments of the service territory.
On the other hand, the UEDCL feed took up the rest of the service territory in the areas of Pakwach, Nebbi, Paidha, and Arua, forming two islands within the service territory.
“Due to capacity constraints, the Nyagak source island suffers from load shedding between 300 kW and 500 kW during the shoulder period. In the same period, the UEDCL source ably supplied its island with no major quality challenges.
As the demand grows into the peak period, the segment of the Nyagak Island, from Arua to Yumbe is handed over to the UEDCL feed, and capacitor banks are switched in to improve the power quality of this feed, thereby expanding the UEDCL source island,” Kigumba said.
He described the connection of the subregion to the grid as ‘not only laborious but also comes with a blackout of a maximum 20 minutes for the furthest user’.
