Sunday, August 28, 2016

Tanzania Power Agency in $3.2m Project
BETTER THINGS TO COME: Bird and Eng. Nyamo-Hanga seal the financial commitment that will see several thousand villages getting electricity during the next six years.

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA – The government through the Rural Energy Authority (REA), is spending $3.2 million to provide electricity to 7,873 villages across Tanzania mainland in the next five years.

“It is estimated that out the total budget to be utilized for the on-grid and off-grid extensions, a total of $1.8 million will be used to electrify villages which so far have no access to electricity whereas the remaining $1.4 million) will be used to transmit electricity in the areas which have the infrastructure, however, the actual cost will be assessed after the tendering process has been finalized,” Eng. Gissima Nyamo-Hanga,  the REA acting Director General told the East African Business Week last week.

Dubbed Turnkey Phase III, the project will supply electricity to 7,697  villages through the grid extension, but 176 villages will be connected by off-grid systems.

He said out of a total of 12,268 villages, at least 4,395 villages have been electrified which is equivalent to 36%.

This is part of a World Bank $209 million financial package to streamline the Tanzania power sector through the six-year Rural Electrification Expansion Programme.

Bella Bird, the World Bank Country Director for Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi and Somalia signed a MoU with Eng. Nyamo-Hanga to seal financial commitment. Recently, she said: “Access to electricity is critical to extend economic opportunities and reduce poverty. This program not only offers the opportunity for many more Tanzanians to have access to power in their homes and businesses, but also enables small power producers to access finance to invest in production, including with renewable energy sources.”

Transmission of electricity through the national grid will involve villages that have so far reached by grid-extension infrastructure, putting in place of underlined transformers in the areas which have the transmission infrastructure, and also those areas implemented during the Turnkey Phase II Densification that will be implemented as part of the Turnkey III component.

Eng. -Hanga said that other areas to be included in this component will be the production and transmission of electricity on islands, and areas that are far from the national grid. There is also a component that will be implemented by private sector players with grants from the Rural Energy Fund.

“The implementation of the off-grid component to the 176 villages will be implemented during the 2016/17 financial year by the private sector with a subsidy from the Government of Tanzania in collaboration with development Partners,” he said.

He said all programmes under the Turnkey III component will be implemented by private contractors in regard to the Turnkey Requirements under the joint supervision of REA, Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (TANESCO), and Trust Agent. The target of the Government of Tanzania is to electrify all villages in Mainland Tanzania by 2021 and to ensure that 85% of the people access electricity by 2025 and 100% by 2030.

The World Bank is supporting ongoing projects in Tanzania’s energy sector including in power generation and capacity strengthening in addition to two recent development policy operations in 2013 and 2014. Among the recent significant achievements registered in the Sector are the progress of the gas-to-power program - a key medium to long-term cost reduction measure, enabled by the completion of a large gas transmission pipeline, connecting producing fields in Mtwara and Songo-Songo to Dar es Salaam.

A new 150MW gas power plant (Kinyerezi I) has been completed while the construction of another 240MW gas power plant (Kinyerezi II) has also begun. With the increased gas production and gas becoming available to all existing and newly commissioned power plants in the Dar es Salaam area, this has eliminated the need for using more costly liquid fuels in those plants and significantly reduced the cost of generation.

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