23rd September 2011
The Netherlands based firm, Aggreko plc will by mid next month pump into the national grid 100MW as part of implementing the Emergency Power Plan (EPP) endorsed by parliament last month.
Emai
According to the Managing Director of the state owned power utility firm (Tanesco), William Mhando Aggreko, which has already started adding 22MW to the national grid, will provide power at its full capacity by October 10, this year.
“We are now implementing the emergency power plan of which the deadline is December,” Mhando said, adding: “There are hopes of succession…because currently we are getting 35MW from Symbion and 22MW from Aggreko.”
The Tanesco chief executive was speaking during a Joint Energy Sector Review Workshop organized by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
He said Aggreko would be generating 50MW at its Ubungo plants while the other 50MW would be produced at Tegeta.
Mhando said negotiations were going on between Tanesco and the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) to start generating the 50MW out of 150MW by next month.
He said the additional 205MW would be added to the national grid by Symbion Power after completion of the price talks currently going on between Tanesco, Symbion and the Energy and Water Utility Regulatory Authority (EWURA).
Similar negotiations were being done with other power firms namely, Wind Power East Africa and East Africa Power Pool of whom every company would generate 50MW, he confirmed.
“Our aim is to reduce power shedding, more will be done in the remaining months”, he said.
In his opening speech, Acting Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Eliakimu Maswi said apart from weather threat and inadequate participation of the private sector, power shortage was also contributed by limited funds from the government.
Maswi said the mentioned challenges resulted into slow access expansion whereas to date only 4.5 per cent of the country’s population has access to electricity.
He said the government had taken initiatives to overcome the challenges, including encouraging the private sector to invest in power projects by developing Electricity Act, 2008 and establishment of the Rural Energy Agency, Rural Energy Fund and EWURA.
Others are grid extension and adoption of off-grid solution to rural electrification, establishment of bulk procurement of petroleum products to reduce cost and set up of a fuel bonded warehouse using TIPER facilities to enable the country have sufficient and strategic fuel stock.
“With a variety of unutilized energy sources, Tanzania is experiencing unreliable and inefficient power services. We think of devising strategies to improve energy services to enable private sector participate in the economy”, he noted.
Speaking on behalf of the Energy Development Partners Group, Senior Advisor at Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Samer Al Fayadh faulted the government slow pace of finding solutions, whereas according to him, some problems identified in the past two years were yet to be solved. He said the country’s electricity sector faced a lot of challenges including, low coverage, unreliable services and power rationing which had affected the economy.
He commended parliament for ensuring transparency in the energy sector.
“Power shedding damages the economy…the emergency plans needs to address current shortfalls”, he stressed.
He said that development partners would continue providing support to the government so that it reaches its economic growth targets.
Al-Fayadh advised the government to look into possible ways of enabling many people to be connected to the service as most of the households pull out of the service due to high cost of connection.
Early this month, Minister for Energy and Minerals, William Ngeleja said power rationing would ease slightly after additional 87MW from Symbion Power and Aggreko companies.
The government last month unveiled 523bn/- power rescue plan to produce 572 megawatts of power, assuring the nation that the proposal would end the power rationing between September and December, this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment