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Mayuge gets Shs41b solar plant
Switched on. A section of the 30,600 panels installed at the Shs40b solar power plant at Bufulubi Village, Imanyiro Sub-county in Mayuge District that was commissioned on Thursday. PHOTO BY PHILIP WAFULA.
What you need to know:
- Speaking at the commissioning ceremony of the 20MW Kabulasoke pilot solar power plant in Gomba District in January, President Museveni said the government has plans to extend both hydro-electric and solar power to all sub-counties countrywide. He listed other areas as Kasese (20MW), Lira (20MW), Soroti (50MW) and Mubende (50MW) as the new solar plants to be established.
A 10MW solar power plant has been commissioned in Mayuge District, bringing to 50MW the total amount of solar generated in the country.
Other power plants are in Soroti (10MW), Tororo (10MW) and Kabulasoke (20MW).
The $11m (about Shs41b) plant is the second to be commissioned this year after Isimba hydro power dam, and is the first to be commissioned without a grant.
It was funded through private equity by Tryba Energy, a French family industrial group dedicated to solar energy, the Group’s director general, Ms Marie-Odile Becker, said during the commissioning on Thursday.
Tryba Energy secured a 20-year lease of 100 acres of land from Busoga Kingdom, while an application was made to the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) to set up the plant and sell the power to Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd (UETCL) for integration into the national grid.
“We have also had local partnerships and have trained and transferred knowledge to more than 400 local personnel and also planted about 3,800 trees,” Ms Becker said.
“Availability of land was crucial to the location of the plant and Mayuge was open, so we sat on the table with its leadership and discussed the issue,” she added.
“The output of the plant will be equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 30,000 homes and will have an annual energy production of 20,592 megawatts per hour and innovative solar tracking technology,” she said.
Mr Nicholas Sur, the Group’s technical director, said the plant’s innovative tracking system allows it to optimise the production of electricity because each of its 30,600 panels follows the sun.
Ms Becker was noncommittal on if she plans to sell the project to government, but said: “If Government is interested, we have to speak about it; but never say no.”
Mr Edward Irura, the ERA acting chief executive officer, said government has developed a model through which it intends to engage all stakeholders in the industry.
“The first is through creating 25 industrial parks to increase demand for electricity since industries consume the largest amount, and electrification of all sub-counties in the country,” he said.
The Bufulubi ‘A’ Zone Village chairperson, Ms Alice Kamba, said the overhead hydropower lines have been bypassing them and hopes the project will solve their power problems.
