By Silvia Nyambura
As Uganda moves towards digitizing most of its systems in a bid to improve service delivery, access to modern energy will become critical. Services such as E-commerce, E-health, E-banking to mention but a few will require sustainable sources of energy. Currently, only 15 percent of the Ugandan population has access to energy, 6 percent of this in the rural areas. In addition, the country produces only 850 megawatts of power with a consumption rate of 69.5 percent while demand for the same is growing by 10 percent.
The country plans to increase generation capacity in a bid to grow energy penetration to 22 percent by the year 2022. This however will involve efforts from all stakeholders both private and public if the country is to be consistent with the UN Secretary General’s Sustainable Energy for All objective of achieving universal access to modern energy services by 2024.
During a forum held in Kampala on 22nd July 2014 and organized by World Wide Fund (WWF) in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, it emerged that expanding energy access will rely primarily on renewable sources. David Duli the WWF Country Director said, “As an organization we are identifying sustainable financing mechanisms to facilitate energy access. This involves influencing the public sector players to finance renewable energy intervention while partnering with the private sector to support implementation of renewable energy strategies in target districts. We also try to ensure knowledge gaps on key energy issues are addressed through partnerships with research institutions.