虽然过去曾进行过大规模的农村电气化运动，而且现在过剩的电力也达到了250兆瓦，可是数百万乌干达人仍然没能用上电
文I罗纳德·卡托（Ronald Kato） 乌干达《新愿景报》记者 翻译I王晓波
喀土穆是一个小村庄，位于乌干达中部首都坎帕拉外35公里的地方。大多数喀土穆的居民都是种蔬菜和玉米的贫穷的农民，但是造成贫困的真正原因主要是缺乏电力。虽然它离首都非常近，可是它却没有连接上国家电网，这就严重阻碍了它的发展潜力和居民生活的繁荣。
两年前，这个村庄里一位叫查尔斯·梅维瑞的居民曾尝试过焊接和制造业务，可是六个月后就经营不下去了。
梅维瑞说，“我负担不起发电机所需的柴油了，成本太高了。”柴油在乌干达的价格差不多是一美元一升。
类似梅维瑞这样的经历在乌干达数以百计的村庄里都能听到，而这一系列的失败都是由于缺乏电力导致的。
过剩的悖论
早在本世纪初，乌干达的电力供应就陷入了危机。对于新大坝和新能源的投资几乎是零，结果就使乌干达遭遇了电力不足的局面。这种对电力投资短缺造成的最典型的局面就是对用电的限制。
为了扭转这一局面，政府选择了使用重型燃料发电机来解决能源短缺的问题。
不过，2012年随着布加嘎里这个250兆瓦的水轮发电厂的启动，能源形势开始趋于稳定。而在此之后又有几家小型水力发电厂陆续投产，结果反而造成了能源的过剩。
根据乌干达发电有限公司（UEGCL）提供的信息，乌干达发电机所产的电力，也就是国家目前的发电容量是约862兆瓦——其中包括来自燃油发电机产出的100兆瓦——而国家实际上的有效需求只有600兆瓦，因此估计约有200兆瓦属于过剩产能。
过剩是由于缺乏足够的需求造成的。经济的萎缩意味着对电力需求的减弱，因为在乌干达工业行业消耗了约70%的电力，可是现在工业的发展却放缓了。
乌干达发电有限公司的执行总裁Harrison Mutikanga说，政府应当吸引投资者来使用这些过剩的产能。他说，“我们应当通过吸引更多的投资者来建立工厂，从而消耗电力，释放被抑制的需求。发电本身已经不成问题，我们现在需要做的是改进输配电线路。”
制造业的需求疲软对用电的低覆盖率并没有起到弥补的作用，乌干达的用电覆盖率仅有约20%。虽然过去曾进行过大规模的农村电气化运动，而且现在过剩的电力也达到了250兆瓦，可是数百万乌干达人仍然没能用上电。
不过政府机构认为，在今后两年里，随着经济的全面复苏，过剩的电力将会被消化掉。UMEME有限公司是乌干达最主要的电力分销商，它的执行总裁Selestino Babungi说，过剩的现象不会持续太长时间了。
他解释说，“供应应当先行于需求。事实上，对于基础设施和工业领域的投资者，他们都非常注重了解未来五年是否有足够的电力供应。如果一个国家的电力供应不足的话，那就很难指望建立新的企业。”
国际货币基金组织预测，到2020年，乌干达的经济将恢复到2011年前的7%的增长水平。
需要更多的电力供应
虽然出现了供应的剩余，乌干达仍在继续推进更多的电力项目。目前，两个位于国家中部和北部的水电站已接近完工。
伊辛巴水电站（183兆瓦）和卡鲁马水电站（600兆瓦）正在分别由中国水利电力有限公司和中国水电建设集团承建中，建设费用高达约30亿美元，都是由中国进出口银行（EXIM）资助的。一旦投入使用后，这两个项目将使乌干达的装机容量达到1683兆瓦。
需求将满足，甚至超过供应
随着工业化和农业加工的不断向前推进，政府确信过剩的电力都能得到利用。
工业需要使用近70%的电力，因此当更多的工业项目建成后，有效需求会成倍增长。政府已经充分考虑了几个即将投产项目的需求。
按照Mutikanga的说法，这些需求包括标准轨距铁路、Namanve工业园、坎帕拉轻轨、伊甘加区工业园、Osukuru磷肥厂以及日益加速的城市化进程。
在乌干达石油资源丰富的Albertine地区，预计会有更多的电力需求，因为将石油运往坦桑尼亚坦噶港的输油管道将是世界上最大的电加热管道，而它就是在建项目之一。在这一产油区还有炼油厂、霍伊马国际机场和霍伊马工业园。
此外，在自贸区管理局负责下正在建设的自贸区预计也会对电力有很大的需求。所有这些项目在建成后需要的电力消耗加在一起将超过800兆瓦。但在它们投入使用前，过剩的电力供应很可能仍是消费者和纳税人的一个负担。
高电价始终是一个阻碍
乌干达的电力供应虽然存在着200兆瓦的过剩，可是其电价却是东非地区最高的。其中一个原因就是乌干达背负着高昂的债务，但为了确保能源安全，迫使其不得不支付极高的发电成本。
乌干达曾与独立电力生产商（IPPs）签立的合同对它也构成了一个负担。本世纪初，为了弥补大量的能源短缺，政府与它们匆匆签立了采购合同，但事实上在五年多时间里它们并没有向政府出售任何电力，可现在政府却仍需向它们支付巨额的支出。
2014至2015年期间，审计署的报告显示，政府向那些无所作为的独立电力生产商们支付了约2200万美元，而它们竟然没有产生一兆瓦的电力。
乌干达制造商协会（UMA）承担着消耗全国各地近70%电力的重任，它对高电价一直抱怨连连。
Richard Sserwadda 是坎帕拉南部的一个玉米磨坊主，他说高电价严重挫伤了农产品加工商们的积极性，导致他们不愿为提高乌干达农业的附加值付出努力。
他说，“这么多年来政府一直在承诺要把电力成本降下来，可结果却是什么也没有发生。”
他还说，“办企业需要承担的费用太高了，简直不可思议，这也就是为什么没有新的工厂投产来消化过剩电力的原因。”
电价对国内居民来讲也非常高，原因之一是用电覆盖率太低。目前，家庭、美容院、商店和售货亭的用电费用是一度电685个先令（相当于0.189美元）。这对乌干达的普通老百姓来讲太高了，因为他们每天的生活费还不足2美元。
提高农村电气化的普及率
乌干达的人均用电只有每年75千瓦小时，是非洲居民人均用电量最低的国家之一。而且它的用电覆盖率也很低，国家的电气化率仅达到20%，其中农村人口中能够用上电的不足7%。电力短缺仍是阻碍国家经济增长的最大障碍之一。
有限的电力供应和能源成本的高企不仅影响了经济的发展，也加剧了不平等现象，阻碍了人民生活的改善，而且使经商费用进一步加大。为了扭转这样的局面，政府正在制定各类计划和采取各种措施，比如它所制定的2040愿景，即到2040年使电气化率达到80%；国家发展五年计划，目标是到2019年和2020年，全国用电覆盖率达到30%；以及农村电气化10年发展战略和规划（RESP-2），目标是到2022年，将农村的用电覆盖率增加到26%。
根据农村电气化机构（REA）执行主任Godfrey Turyahikayo提供的信息，该机构授权负责实现政府确立的农村电气化目标。在2014到2015这一财政年度，国家电网中新增了354.21公里的中压线路和2145公里的低压线路。
迄今，农村电气化机构已经铺设了大约5400公里的中压线路和3300公里的低压线路。在铺设线路时，区域总部、医疗中心、学校和以农业为基础的产业是优先得到考虑的地方。
2013年6月，乌干达政府已经批准了农村电气化10年发展战略和规划（RESP-2），其目标就是将农村的用电覆盖率从现在的7%提高到26%。
差距和需要采取的措施
乌干达现有的装机发电量是862兆瓦。财政部长马蒂亚·卡塞加在关于2015至2016年度财政预算的发言中指出，国家当前的用电覆盖率是20.4%，这也就意味着有超过2500万的乌干达人还不能用上电。从用电量的角度看，乌干达的状况远远落后于其他发展中国家。
国家发展计划二期提出了在2012至2013财政年度，人均年平均耗电量80千瓦小时的基准数字。这一数字只有赞比亚的十分之一（赞比亚的人均年平均耗电量是767千瓦小时）。而根据国际能源机构在2015年提供的世界主要能源指标统计报告，2013年全球的这一人均数字是3026千瓦小时，乌干达只占到了它的2.4%。
为了乌干达能在2020年达到中等收入水平，国家发展计划二期制定了用电覆盖率达到30%和人均耗电量578千瓦小时的目标。
按照乌干达发电有限公司执行总裁Harrison Mutikanga的说法，为了实现这些目标，国家发展计划二期将2020年的发电装机容量确定为2500兆瓦。这就意味着在2016年至2020年期间，还需要再增加1638兆瓦的发电容量。
可是目前在建的大小项目只能在2020年增加819.3兆瓦的发电量，与国家发展计划二期制定的目标尚有819兆瓦的差距。这清楚地表明，在未来五年，要弥补这一不足，确保社会经济的可持续发展，就需要在发电设施方面继续增加投资。
⬆乌干达年轻人用太阳能充电器给他的移动设备充电
新的发电站项目
除了伊辛巴水电站和卡鲁马水电站这两个旗舰项目外，乌干达正在开发中的项目还有：Ayago（840兆瓦）、Muzizi（44.7兆瓦）和Nyagak三期（5.5兆瓦）。乌干达发电有限公司也正在提供资金，对在Okulacere（6.5兆瓦）、Latoro（4.2兆瓦）、Agbinika（2兆瓦）和Maziba（1兆瓦）兴建一些小型水电坝进行可行性研究。
清洁能源
根据能源部提供的信息，近年来乌干达对太阳能的利用一直在加强。现在全国各地有200多家私营公司都在销售离网发电装备，而且由于需求激增，预计未来这一现象还将呈上升的趋势。政府对此提供了优惠政策，比如对太阳能产品取消进口关税。
这其中刚刚加入但却最具实力的就是MKOPA太阳能公司，他们的系统可以用现金购买，也可以赊购。整个系统包括两个灯泡、一个电池、一个无线电手机充电器、一个手电筒和一个10瓦的太阳能板。如果现金购买的话，售价为650000先令（相当于200美元）。
MKOPA太阳能公司负责乌干达市场的经理AbbeyKibirango说，“我们知道大多数住宅需要照明和给手机充电的能源，而我们的系统基本上可以满足他们的这些需要。”
除了太阳能，乌干达还计划开发风能。根据乌干达2007年制定的可再生能源政策，并且利用从国家气象部门收集到的有关风的数据，可以得出结论，风能用于发电是可行且充足的。此外，政府也在农村的耕作地区推广使用沼气。（编辑：杨海霞）
Uganda: Shortage of Electricity Remains Despite an Energy Surplus
By Ronald Kato, Journalist of New Vision, Uganda
Kafumu is a small village located 35km outside Uganda’s capital Kampala in central Uganda. Most of Kafumu’s residents are poor farmers who grow vegetables and maize. The village has however been mostly set back by the lack of access to electricity. Despite its close proximity to the capital, Kafumu has never been connected to the national grid, severely hindering its potential to grow and deliver prosperity for its residents.
Two years ago, Charles Maviiri, a resident of the village started a welding and fabrication business. It however collapsed six months later.
“I could not afford diesel for the generator anymore, the costs had become unbearable”, Maviiri said. Diesel in Uganda retails for around $1 a litre.
Tales similar to Maviiri’s can be heard in hundreds of villages in Uganda, a string of failed businesses whose collapse is precipitated by the lack of access to electricity.
The Surplus Paradox
In the early 2000’s, Uganda’s electricity sector was in a crisis. There was almost near zero investment in new dams and new sources of electricity. The result of that was that Uganda faced a power deficit. The most symbolic feature of this poor investment in the electricity sub-sector was the load-shedding.
In a desperate move to save the situation, the government opted for heavy fuel generators to address the energy deficit that the government was facing.
But with the launch of Bujagali, a 250MW hydro power plant in 2012, the energy situation stabilized. The subsequent commissioning of several mini hydro power plants led to surplus energy being generated.
According to Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL0, the generators of Uganda’s electricity, the country’s installed generation capacity is currently about 862MW – including 100MW from the heavy fuel generators – and effective demand is just short of 600MW. The total redundancy is estimated at about 200MW.
The surplus is a result of a lack of enough demand. A contracting economy has meant weaker demand for power as the industrial sector, which consumes about 70% of electricity generated in Uganda has registered slow growth.
UEGCL’s chief executive officer Harrison Mutikanga said the government should attract investors to utilize the surplus power generated.
“We should unlock the suppressed demand by attracting more investors to set up factories to consume power,” said Mutikanga. “Generation is no longer a problem. We also need to improve the transmission and distribution lines,” he added.
The weak demand by the manufacturing sector is not helped by the low electricity coverage. Only about 20% of Ugandans have access to electricity. Despite massive rural electrification campaigns in the past, millions of Ugandans remain without electricity even with a 250 MW surplus.
Authorities however believe the surplus will be swallowed up in the next two years when the economy makes a full recovery. Selestino Babungi, the Chief Executive Officer of UMEME, the electricity distributors in Uganda says the surplus will not last a long time.
“Supply should move ahead of demand. In fact, infrastructure, even if it is an industrial investor, they will look at whether there is enough supply for the next five years. Otherwise, no industries will set-up if a country does not have enough power,” he explained.
The International Monetary Fund projects that Uganda’s economy will return to the pre-2011 growth rate of 7% in 2020.
Generate More Power
Even with an unutilized surplus, Uganda is pressing ahead with more power projects. Currently, two hydro power stations are nearing completion in the central and north of the country.
Isimba (183MW) and Karuma (600MMW) are being built by China Water and Electric and Sino hydro respectively at a cost of around $3bn with financing coming from the Export and Import (EXIM) bank of China. Once on board, the two projects will increase Uganda’s installed capacity to 1,683MW.
Demand will Meet, even Exceed Supply
With a renewed push for industrialization and and agro-processing, government is convinced that the surplus power will be scooped up.
Industries consume almost 70 per cent of the generated power. So when more industries come on board, effective demand will grow exponentially. The government has already lined several demand projections based on the projects that will come on board.
According to Mutikanga, some of these include the demand for the Standard Gauge Railway, Namanve Industrial Park, Kampala Light Rail, Iganga Industrial Park, the Osukuru Phosphate Fertiliser Factory and increasing urbanization.
More power is also expected to be consumed by projects in Uganda’s oil rich Albertine region. The oil pipeline to ship oil to the Tanzanian port of Tanga will be the largest electrically heated pipeline in the world is one of those projects. The others are the oil refinery, Hoima international airport and Hoima industrial park, all located in the oil belt.
Additionally, there is also expected demand from the Free Zones that the country is setting up through the Free Zones Authority. The working assumption is that these projects will consume a combined excess of over 800MW. But before these projects come on board, it is likely that the surplus power will remain a burden to consumers and taxpayers.
High Tarrifs Remain an Obstacle
Uganda’s electricity, even with a 200MW surplus remains most expensive in East Africa. One of the reasons is that Uganda has expensive debt in a bid to make itself energy secure, making the cost of generation much higher.
Uganda’s is also tied down by contracts it reached with Independent Power Producers (IPPs) when they were rushed in to offset a massive energy deficit in the early 2000’s. despite the fact many of them haven’t sold any power to government in more than five years, they continue to receive massive payouts from the state.
In 2014/15, the Auditor General’s report revealed that the government spent about $22m on idle IPPs that did not generate a single megawatt of power.
The Uganda Manufacturers Association (UMA), which consumes about 70 per cent of the electricity distributed in Uganda, has always complained about the tariffs.
Richard Sserwadda, a maize miller in south Kampala says the high tariffs have frustrated agro-processors and defeated efforts to add value to Uganda’s agricultural produce.
“The government has been promising to bring down the cost of power for so many years but that has not happened”, he said.
“The cost of doing business remains unacceptably high and that’s why there are no new factories to use up the surplus power”, Sserwadda added.
Power prices remain high for domestic users too, one of the reasons access to electricity remains minimal. Currently, the cost of a unit of power for household, salons, shops and kiosks is Shs685 ($0.189). This is still very high for an average Ugandan who lives on less than two dollars a day.
Rural Electrification to Increase Access
With an average of 75 kWh/year, Uganda has one of the lowest electricity consumption per inhabitant in Africa. Its population has low access to electricity; the national electrification rate is estimated at 20% with the rural population having an even lower rate of less than 7%. Power shortage remains one of the greatest obstacles to the country’s economic growth.
The limited access to electricity and high energy costs are hampering economic development, entrenching inequality and impeding the improvement of livelihoods and further contributes to the high cost of doing business in the country. To address this situation, the government is implementing various measures, such as its Vision 2040 to achieve an 80 percent electrification rate by 2040, the five-year National Development Plan targeting 30% overall access by 2019/20 and the 10-year Rural Electrification Strategy and Plan (RESP-2) targeting to increase the current electricity access in rural areas to 26% by 2022.
According to the executive director of the rural Electrification Agency (REA), the Uganda government agency mandated to facilitate the government’s goal of achieving rural electrification, Godfrey Turyahikayo, in the financial year 2014/15, over 354.21km of medium voltage and 2,145km of low voltage were added to the national grid.
Approximately 5,400km of medium voltage and 3300km of low voltage have been constructed by the Rural Electrification Agency. As a way to boost access, priority is given to district headquarters, health centres, schools and agro-based industries, when building lines.
The Government of Uganda approved the 10-year Rural Electrification Strategy and Plan (RESP-2) in June 2013 with a target to increase access to electricity in rural areas from 7% to 26%. The Uganda.
The Gap and What it will take to Plug it
Uganda currently has 862 MW of installed electricity generation capacity. In his 2015/16 budget speech, Finance minister Matia Kasaija indicated that electricity access is currently at 20.4 per cent, meaning more than 25 million Ugandans lack access to electricity. From the electricity-consumption point of view, Uganda’s situation is far below other developing countries.
The National Development Plan II provides a baseline figure of annual average electricity consumption of 80 kilowatt-hours per capita (kWh per capita) for the financial year 2012/13. This is one-tenth of the consumption in Zambia (767 kWh per capita) and just 2.6 per cent of the global average (3,026 kWh per capita) from the 2013 energy indicators provided by the International Energy
Agency report of 2015 on key world energy statistics.
For Uganda to attain middle-income status by 2020, the NDP II has set targets for electricity access at 30 per cent and average consumption at 578 kWh per capita.
According to Harrison Mutikanga, the Chief Executive Officer of Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited, in order to realise these targets, the NDP II projects power generation installed capacity to increase to 2,500 MW by 2020. This means increasing installed electricity generation capacity by 1,638 MW between 2016 and 2020.
But the large and small projects currently under development will add a total of 819.3 MW of new capacity by 2020. This, however, falls short of the NDP II target for installed capacity by 819 MW. This clearly shows there is still need to invest in more electricity generation facilities to close the deficit and ensure sustainable socio-economic development in the next five years.
New Power Projects
Away from the two flagship projects of Isimba and karuma, Uganda is in the process of developing Ayago (840MW), Muzizi (44.7 MW) and Nyagak III (5.5 MW). UEGCL is also currently in the process of securing funding for feasibility studies to develop other small hydro power dams across the country at Okulacere (6.5MW), Latoro (4.2MW), Agbinika (2MW) and Maziba (1MW).
Clean Energy
According to the ministry of energy, Uganda’s uptake of solar energy has been growing in recent years. There are now more than 200 private companies involved in selling off-grid power devices across the country and the growth trend is expected to continue in the coming years because of the surging demand. The growth is explained in part by favourable government policies such as the waiving of import duty on solar energy products.
One of the newest and most influential industry players is MKOPA solar. Their systems can be bought on credit or on cash. A system complete with two bulbs, a battery, a radio, phone charger, torch, and a 10W panel is sold at Shs 650,000 ($200) on a cash basis.
‘We know that most homesteads need energy for lighting and to charge mobile phones, our systems basically answer these needs’, says Abbey Kibirango, M-KOPA’s Uganda marketing manager.
Away from solar energy, Uganda also plans to exploit its wind energy potential. According to Uganda’s renewable energy policy 2007, wind data collected by the country’s meteorology department concluded that wind energy is available and sufficient for power generation especially in the southwest and east of the country. The government is also promoting biogas among rural farming communities.