Government has announced that it has started importing a certain percentage of electricity for use in the country from neighbouring Kenya following an emergency shutdown at Isimba down.
The Isimba hydro-power dam was shut down last week following flooding of the power house that houses generators and turbines.
This has led to power outages in the country for the past one week.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Energy Minister, Ruth Nankabirwa finally commented on the shutdown of the 183megawatt Isimba dam that she admitted happened on Monday last week.
"The shutdown was due to operation challenges that led to the flow of water into the powerhouse. The shutdown was undertaken as a safety procedure to ensure safety of staff and protection of electro-mechanical equipment,"Nankabirwa said.
Last week, distributor, Umeme announced that it had been notified by UETCL by the shutdown that they said would see emergency load shedding in certain parts of the country.
"Some customers may be affected but the teams are working to ensure power supply from other sources," Umeme spokesperson, Peter Kaujju said last week.
This has seen several parts of the country go under load shedding in the past one week.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Energy Minister said the operator of the dam, UETCL is undertaking measures to ensure power production is restored at Isimba but said this will be done in a period of three weeks.
"The Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited(UETCL) ins undertaking measures to ensure continuity of electricity supply including importation of 60 megawatts of power from Kenya,"Nankabirwa said.
Uganda's current electricity generation capacity stands at about 1,250Megawatts but consumption stands at slightly above 650 megawatts during peak hours, creating a surplus of half of what is generated.
The amount of electricity produced in Uganda is expected to increase to over 2,000MW by end of 2022 with the addition of Karuma dam which produces 600MW, Kikagati (16MW) and Nyamagasani I (15MW) as well as other small hydro power plants .
Therefore, the amount of unused power is expected to increase due to low growth in demand.
To this, Uganda exports a certain percentage of its electricity to neighbouring Kenya and part of Tanzania, eastern DR Congo and South Sudan.
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In 2019, Kenya increased its electricity imports from Uganda through UETCL by 67% following a 50% tariff reduction.
However, following the latest debacle at Isimba dam will now have to import at least 60 megawatts of power from Kenya.
According to the Energy Minister, UETCL will also dispatch up 50 megawatts of power from Namanve Thermal Power Plant, 20 megawatts from Kakira Sugar Power Plant but also the optimization of the generation of the available power plants.
"UETCL is undertaking suspension of any planned and non-emergency shutdown or outage permits UETCL is also undertaking implementation of load shedding to balance power demand and supply and ensure that grid stability is achieved and sustained,"Nankabirwa said.
Isimba dam
Commissioned in 2019, Isimba hydro power dam cost $567.7 million(Shs2.1 trillion) with China's EXIM bank contributing the largest part of the funds (85%) whereas the Uganda government contributed 15%.
The dam added 183 megawatts of electricity onto the national grid.
Outages
With the current shutdown of Isimba, the country should expect power outages on several occasions after government directed UETCL to ensure implementation of load shedding to balance power demand and supply.
This means that whereas some areas will have power, others will not and vice versa for the next three weeks as works to rectify the glitch at the 183 megawatt Isimba dam continue.
