House orders investigation into Isimba dam shutdown

More than a week after one of the country’s three main hydropower dams was shut down, the Energy ministry has failed to explain what happened and why the country has been pushed back into loadshedding.

 After listening to a submission by Energy minister Ruth Nankabirwa that failed to shine a light on the nature of the defect at the 183.2MW dam on the River Nile, MPs yesterday agreed to a full investigation into the incident.

 Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa ordered the Committee on Natural Resources to investigate the shutdown and report back to the House in three weeks – the  same duration the power plant is expected to take before generation resumes. 

 In an earlier sitting of the House on Wednesday, Mr Tayebwa tasked the minister to explain the cause of the shutdown and why Uganda was planning to import power from Kenya, yet the country boasts of generating excess power.

 In response, Ms Nankabirwa said a malfunction that occurred during maintenance works by the Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL) caused flooding of the powerhouse that triggered the shutdown.

“The shutdown was due to the flow of water into the powerhouse and investigations are underway to establish the exact cause of this incident,” she said.

 She added that although the water was drained, generation could not resume due to damaged equipment. The cost of the damages is yet to be established but Ms Nankabirwa says it is covered by the operations and maintenance budget.

 Legislators were, however, dissatisfied with the explanation, and accused the minister of withholding facts or not being well informed about what happened.

 “The minister is being mean with the cause of the flooding,” Mr David Karubanga, Kigorobya County MP, said.

 “The issue that happened at Isimba is not flooding, the issue was technical and there are chances that it was intentional. Pick interest, after the shutdown of Isimba, the cost of thermal and you will see. Some of these things happening in Isimba are not by accident and mistake. They are intentional,” Mr Maurice Kibalya,  the Bugabula County South MP, said

 But the legislators’ queries into the justification to import power turned out to be post-mortem after the minister revealed that Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL) had already purchased 60MW from Kenya.

 “Initially,  we imported power close to 60MW to stabilise the electricity grid...as of today, the amount of power that we are importing from Kenya has gone down to 30MW and it will continue  going down,”  she said.

 An additional 50MW was dispatched from Namanve Thermal Plant and 20 MW from Kakira power plant, officials revealed.

 Cabinet is said to have given the green light for the importation on Monday, and the minister gave no details as to when the purchase was done. Isimba was taken off the grid on August 8.

 Uganda with an installed capacity of 1378.1MW, and a peak demand of 900MW, has a surplus of more than 400MW.

Even with Isimba’s 183MW now off, there would be a 295MW surplus. Officials have failed to explain why they rushed to buy power from private producers and from Kenya instead of falling back on the surplus.

 The minister, defended the move, saying not all the power generated is available for consumption.

 “Power from some of the plants is not evacuated due to lack of transmission, distribution infrastructure. You  must have infrastructure to remove the power from where it is generated  to where it is needed, minus that, you remain with that power generated  and you count it as part of your generation capacity  but when it comes to consumption, you are just looking at it. It is not yet uploaded on the power grid. It is excess because you are not using it,”  Ms Nankabirwa said.

 She added: “The firm capacity keeps on changing due to factors like routine maintenance. For example in Nalubaale, some units are switched off. You cannot carry out maintenance while you are generating. When you switch off a unit that means you are going to have a deficit.” 

Due to fluctuations in generation attributed to hydrology fluctuations, and old equipment, the minister said starting August 15, the country is facing a power deficit of 260MW to meet its demand peak.

 Ugandans will also suffer episodes of load shedding as the sector works to balance power demand, but Ms Nankabirwa was quick to add that this will not translate to increase in tariffs.

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