TANZANIA: HIRED EMERGENCY POWER GENERATION PLANTS FOR SHUTDOWN

Kinyerezi electricity and natural gas power plant under construction.

The government has announced a move to retire all the emergency power generation plants by January, next year and save 1.6trn/- annually which is spent to hire the plants.

The announcement was made in the city on Tuesday by the Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Mr Eliakim Maswi, during a development partners and ambassadors tour of Kinyerezi electricity and natural gas power plants.

He said that they will retire the hired power plants and focus on the use of their own sources under the national power utility firm, Tanesco, to generate electricity though the natural gas.

"The commissioning of the power plant that uses gas turbines will start in January and we will have more than 200MW remaining idle. In this case we will retire all emergency power plants," said Maswi.

He said that they have started the initiative by retiring the plants in Dodoma and Arusha. In November, this year, they will retire another plant. The retired plants will be replaced by Kinyerezi One Electricity plant and Kinyerezi power pipeline projects.

Maswi said the Kinyerezi One electricity plant will be handed over officially to the government in March, next year, while commissioning trials are planned for December, this year. The natural gas pipeline project will be submitted in April, next year.

He was optimistic that once the commissioning operates fully, Tanesco will be in a position to operate at its highest efficiency. "We want to ensure that we have reliable and available power supply at the lowest cost so that the public can enjoy lower tariff and we call upon development partners to assist us so that we reach the target," he said.

He added that Tanesco and Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) have been given a milestone which they will have to meet as the government wants to boost the country's economy.

Maswi was impressed by the pace at which the construction is going on, attributing it to fast tracking the shipment of the equipment needed.

The World Bank Country Director for Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda, Mr Philippe Dongier, was impressed by the construction speed. He said that its completion will be a solution to power problems in Tanzania.