Power distributor Umeme Limited will spend $25.2 million (Shs 91.5 billion) replacing 200,000 postpaid electricity meters with pay-as-you-go measuring devices.
The investment is meant to check commercial energy losses and costs associated with employing meter readers, which should, ultimately, improve the electricity supply industry’s revenue collection.
On the other hand, with prepayment meters, consumers are able to monitor their consumption of power. According to Umeme’s 2018 Annual Report, as of 2018, 82 per cent of the company’s 1.4 million customers were using such meters.
The conversion from postpaid will go on alongside the government’s Electricity Connections Policy (ECP). Through the ECP, the government aims to increase the percentage of Ugandans accessing electricity from 25 per cent – as of 2019 – to 60 per cent by 2027.
Put differently, the government intends to connect 300,000 premises per year, up from an average of 70,000 to the national grid. With financial support from development partners, government is picking the tab for the connection of premises that are within 90 metres radii of electricity poles that have a meter or two.
Before November 2018, applicants would pay anything between Shs 138,000 and Shs 2 million, depending on number of poles required. Now, each applicant pays just Shs 20, 000 in inspection fees to the distribution company serving his or her location.
Under the ECP, the government expects Umeme to connect 267,000 applications this year alone while the other power distribution companies such as the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited will connect 33,000.
As of December 2019, Uganda’s installed generation capacity was 1, 252 megawatts (MW), according to ERA. Peak demand – that is consumption between 6pm when many members of different families get home from office and turn on their electrical gadgets and midnight – was 723.7MW.
To ensure even the surplus power is consumed, the government is implementing ECP as well as wooing investors to establish factories in Uganda. Government projects that every 300,000 premises connected to the grid will increase the consumption of power by 50MW annually whereas the large power users will consume just over an additional 100MW annually.