Tanzania: Electricity Production to Hit 75 Per Cent By 2020

TANZANIA needs to increase its electricity power production by 75.3 per cent before the year 2020, if the country is to be selfsufficient enough to meet the expected escalating demands being driven by massive rates of Rural-Urban Migration.

The Secretary General for the East African Community (EAC), Dr Richard Sezibera, stated this in a release which was made available here, which said that the current rapid urbanisation and industrialisation taking place in the East African region are pushing high demand for electricity.

"In fact the demand in East Africa is expected to grow at approximately 5.3 per cent per year for the next five years until 2020 and to meet these requirements, by some estimates, generation capacity will have to increase by 37.7 per cent in Uganda, 96.4 per cent in Kenya, 75.3 per cent in Tanzania and 115 per cent in Rwanda," pointed out Dr Sezibera.

The five East African Member states of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania has a combined population of nearly 150 million residents and many of these are expected to live in urban areas by 2020. At the moment, 80 per cent of the countries' population resides in rural villages.

The EA secretary general, however, lauded efforts by the five member states in working hard to off-set the impending future power needs as exemplified by the Republic of Kenya commissioning the Olkaria IV Power Plant, which is set to be the world's largest single turbine geothermal power plant, expected to add 140- Mega Watts to the regional electricity grid.

Tanzania, apparently, is also contemplating to tab energy from the country's newly found gas deposits as well as the over 5,000 sites found to be potential for the generation of geothermal energy.

On the other hand there are ongoing efforts to have more than 14 million Tanzanians connected to the National Grid by June 2015 when most of the rural villages in the country stand to be lit up through the ongoing rural electrification initiative.

Through the initiative, 30 per cent of the country will be connected to the main grid before June, this year, while also 50 per cent of Tanzanians, which is over 23 million residents throughout the country, should be enjoying direct electricity services by 2025.