Badra Masoud

In a move to stabilise power supply in the country, Tanzania Electric Supply Company will on Sunday launch a new plant in Dar es Salaam, which will add 100MW to the national grid.

The move, according to the company’s communication manager, Badra Masoud, will go a long way in strengthening electricity supply in the country.

“Tanzanians should not expect any power rationing in any season of the year,” she said.

Masoud told journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday that Tanesco

would henceforth reward people who will voluntarily report any kind of sabotage of its infrastructure and expose dishonest customers.

“We'll give cash prizes to people who will provide us with tips and accurate information on sabotage of the company's infrastructure. We suffer losses due to some few people who don’t want to pay for our service,” she said.

She said new customers applying for the service will from now be connected within 30 days, calling upon those who have paid for the service but are yet to be connected to report at the office of the Energy and Minerals permanent secretary before June 30, this year.

Masoud said the company expected to connect power for approximately 100,000 customers by the end of this year. Last May another electricity producing company, Symbion Power, started producing 50MW from its new Arusha plant.

Symbion Power chief executive officer Paul Hinks was quoted as saying that construction of the firm’s 50MW power plant in Arusha had already been completed and that the company was waiting for certain connections to the system before switching it on.

“The plant will be operational in the next two weeks, or even earlier….that’s what I can say for now,” he said.

Under the implementation of the country's emergency power plan, the US-based Symbion Power was contracted to produce and supply to Tanesco 205MW.

He explained that the balance of 100MW had been delayed by Tanesco until August, this year, in order to save the government money.

A study by the UK-based Parsons Brinkerhoff said Tanzania would see a dramatic increase in power demand over the next 20 to 30 years, and advised it to consider investing in wind power generation to overcome the problem.

It stated that Tanzania’s power demand by 2038 was expected to increase to 7,000MW.

Titled ‘Wind Resource Intermittency and the Requirement of Balancing Demand versus Generation: Challenges and Good Practices for Reliable Wind Electricity Generation and Supply’, the study was undertaken by the firm in November, last year.

During the period, the country is likely to continue depending primarily on hydroelectricity, with continued significant thermal reserve input, it said.

Recent statistics by Tanesco show that Tanzania’s current power generation stands at 718MW while the demand is estimated at between 600MW and 829MW per day.

Addressing the media recently, Tanesco managing director William Mhando said current power production was as follows: Kihansi dam 100MW, Kidatu 160MW, Mtera 40MW, Pangani 15MW, Hale 5MW and Nyumba ya Mungu 2.6MW.

Energy produced by other sources was as follows: Songas 142MW, Ubungo gas plant 102MW, Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL) 60MW, Tegeta gas plant 42MW and Symbion 60MW, he said.

He said the country’s power production capacity when all the sources were functioning well stood at 1,272MW.