Engineers at Isimba dam have restored units 2 and 4 of turbines, enabling the plant to generate 91.4 megawatts of electricity.
The engineers said since the flooding into the power plant happened on the 8th of this month, they have worked tirelessly to restore the plant, with unit 1 expected back on the grid by the end of today or tomorrow.
The revelation came as energy minister Ruth Nankabirwa inspected the dam to assess the progress of restoration following the shutdown recently which raised public concern
“So, to all Ugandans, the issue of load shedding because of what happened here at Isimba should not be something to be entertained now because we are now producing. And the issue of importation of power from Kenya. It was a technical problem because we don’t import
She said the electric distribution company suppressed exportation of Power to Kenya of around as unit two came back on board generating 40MW.
” We also had power generated at Namanve Thermal Power Plant. That surpression lasted 3 days and now we’re back to exporting 50 to 60MW to Kenya,”said Nankabirwa.
Nankabirwa last week assured the country that the closure of Isimba dam and the importation of power from Kenya will not lead to an increase of power tariffs.
The 183MW Isimba Hydropower power plant in Kayunga district experienced a shut down on Monday, 08 August 2022
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.
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.
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.
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.