Karuma power dam ready for commissioning

Kiryandongo, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Karuma Hydropower Station is finally due for commissioning almost 12 years since construction began.

With a generation capacity of 600 megawatts, it is the largest electricity plant in the country, capable of producing 4,373 Gigawatt Hours per year.

The project which was initially expected to be completed and commissioned in 2019 was delayed for another five years and commissioning was also postponed by at least four years due to various reasons.

At each postponement, the contracting firm Sino Hydro Power Company and the government through the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development and the Uganda Electricity Generation Company Ltd trade accusations over the delays.

The government agencies accused the Chinese firm of being too slow and doing shoddy work, while the contractor accused the government of failing to do its job in time, including the provision of technical design on which the works were based to progress.

Defects were detected in 2021 and 2022 which had to be rectified before the facility would be handed over to the owner, the government.

Meanwhile, all those years of postponements, the cost of the project, initially at 1.7 billion dollars (about 6.3 trillion shillings) financed by Afreximbank, kept increasing at a 15 percent rate, hitting 8.18 trillion.

An audit report on the country’s electricity generation infrastructure projects for 2022/2023 showed that the duration of the project had been extended by half then, and resulted in interest claims of 30 million dollars or about 114 billion shillings.

The switch on of some turbines in June came as good news as it increased the country’s generation capacity to more than 2,000 megawatts, continuing the upward trend.

This is mainly on account of the commissioning of various renewable energy projects, mainly hydro generation projects, according to the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA).

In the last 5 years, the commissioning of Isimba 183MW and Karuma 600MW Hydro Power plants among others had, by the end of the second quarter of 2024, pushed installed capacity to 2,048.1 MW, according to ERA, a 63.7 percent increase from 1,251MW in 2019.

All the renewable energy projects contributed 95 percent of all generation capacity, with hydroelectricity comprising the largest share at 84 percent.

This pushes the installed capacity to more than twice the demand.

Maximum demand increased from 843 MW in 2022 to 987.8MW registered in December 2023 which represents a 17 percent growth rate.

This is in line with the government’s strategic to make sure “generation capacity stays well beyond demand to ensure that there is no supply shock” as more households and factories continue demanding more.

Irene Batebe, the Permanent Secretary at the ministry says the delays were also worth it for the sake of safety as they had to ensure all issues were addressed.

The long period of the construction also had to down with the kind of project, especially with an underground powerhouse, the third of its kind in Africa.

However, there are also fears that the delays, coupled with the increase in costs along the way, as well as delays to settle project-affected persons and procurement corruption allegations could affect the government’s promise of the project lowering the cost of electricity to the consumer.

The Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), says the government promised that Karuma power would be sold at 179.5 shillings per kilowatt hour in the next 10 years but that the above challenges may make this difficult.

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