THE National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in tandem with the Rural Energy Agency (REA) is set to begin its third survey on the availability of energy in Mainland regions.

Dr Albina Chuwa, the bureau’s CEO and chief government statistician, explained the plan to 110 enumerators put to training on how to conduct the survey, with trainers drawn from the Ministry of Energy, the President’s Office-Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG), and NBS.

The survey, which will cover 10,500 households across urban and rural areas will gather data on cooking and lighting energy, which she said is crucial for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 and the National Vision 2025.

While this vision is coming to an end it cannot be completed without accurate data, in much the same way as preparing Vision 2050, she said, explaining that the government’s plan is to ensure that the period 2024 to 2034 will suffice for a shift to clean cooking energy.

The survey will help the government to understand the situation on the ground, gather public input, and assess the increase in income related to clean energy use, among other factors, she said. “The survey must be conducted to provide answers,” she emphasized.

In the 2002 Population and Housing Census, the use of clean energy was minimal, at one percent of households, spread to an extent among city dwellers, she said.

In the past two decades the situation has been changing, thus the 2022 census showed that clean cooking energy use had risen to 16 percent of all households, she said.

Census commissioner Anne Makinda said that the government values energy sector contribution in boosting the national economy, with a series of projects to ensure adequate electricity supply.

“An investor cannot start a project to invest in an area without reliable electricity,” she said, noting that the 2019 energy availability survey showed that energy access stood at 78.5 percent overall, with urban areas at 99.6 percent and rural areas at 69.6 percent.

This represents an 11 percent increase compared to 2016, when rural access had attained 49.3 percent, marking a 21 percent increase,” she said.

Implementation of the comprehensive rural electrification programme has enabled a total of 12,240 villages out of 12,318 in the Mainland to be electrified, providing affordable, reliable and stronger electricity especially in rural areas, she stated.

Rural electrification would accelerate the pace of implementation of the national strategy for clean and safe cooking energy, that by 2034, upwards of 80 percent of households be using clean energy, she added.