Electricity cables in sections of Kololo in Kampala as well as those in Kawanda and Namulonge in Wakiso district will be replaced with bigger ones as Umeme steps up its capital investments to improve reliability of power supply.
This is in response to demand on the energy distribution system in those areas. Larger wires will help ensure less power is dissipated, thus improve supply to at least 22,240 households.
To finance the project, power distributor Umeme has set aside $332,426 (Shs 1.2 billion), an amount the Electricity Regulatory Authority has since approved. This money will be recovered through the power tariff.
“In Kololo, we will upgrade the medium-voltage conductors’ size from 100 millimetres squared (mm2) to 150mm2. We want to have sufficient room for electrons to move,” Dansturn Kimbowa, the project engineer, says.
“It will be like replacing a two-lane road with a four-lane track; that would help reduce traffic jam.”
On some sections of Kawanda–Namulonge, Umeme will swap existing 25mm2 cables with 100mm2 while in other zones, it will replace 100 mm2 conductors with those of 150 mm2. Additionally, the utility will replace poles on the Lugogo–Kololo stretch that are rotting with fresh ones.
Kimbowa says once the enhancements on the lines are complete, most likely by July, pressure on the Lugogo–Kololo line will reduce by 57 percentage points while that on the Kawanda–Namulonge feeder will reduce by 19 percentage points.
According to Umeme’s annual report for 2018, the company has over the last seven years reduced energy losses from 26.1 per cent to 16.6 per cent. This, the report adds, has been achieved through deliberate investment in the distribution network to reduce technical losses and commercial losses.
The report estimates that commercial energy losses, such as theft of power, constitute 6.6 per cent while the technical losses, like poor lines, account for the balance (10 per cent) of the overall energy losses as at December 31, 2019.
rose@observer.ug
