Minister for Energy and Minerals, Prof Sospeter Muhongo.
The Programme aims to build on the
recent achievements of expanding nationwide access to 36 per cent in
2014. In addition, the Programme will scale up the supply of renewable
energy in rural areas while strengthening sector institutional capacity.
“Access to electricity is critical to
extend economic opportunities and reduce poverty,” noted Bella Bird,
World Bank Country Director in Tanzania, who also covers Malawi, Burundi
and Somalia.
“This programme not only offers the
opportunity for many more Tanzanians to have access to power in their
homes and businesses, but also enables small power producers to access
finance to invest in production, including with renewable energy
sources,” she added.
The Tanzanian government is currently
implementing a national energy policy whose goal is to increase the
country’s overall electricity connectivity to 50 per cent by 2025 and to
at least 75 per cent by 2033.
The National Rural Electrification
Programme (2013–2022) under which the new Programme is to be
implemented, includes both on-grid and off-grid solutions and has four
priorities.
These are the connection of new
customers to the grid in already electrified settlements; new
connections to the grid; electrification through off-grid investments
and the development of distributed technologies, in particular off-grid
solar and other renewable technologies.
In addition to household beneficiaries,
the financing will also benefit 25,000 education facilities, 25,000
health facilities, 150,000 businesses. Small Power Projects will also
benefit from access to capital to enable them to contribute 33MW in
renewable energy under the Programme.
The respective implementing
institutions, including the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, as well as
the Rural Electrification Agency will benefit from capacity
strengthening to improve efficiency, transparency and accountability.
“The Programme comes at a time when the
government has embarked upon an important long-term power sector
restructuring plan which will greatly improve transparence, performance
and efficiency that are vital for future expansion achievements,” said
Nataliya Kulichenko, the World Bank’s Senior Energy Specialist and Task
Team Leader.
Recent increases in access have been
attributed to key government actions including a 2013 Parliamentary
resolution that resulted in more financing to the Rural Energy Fund
using a petroleum levy and the reduction in connection fees for the
final consumer owing to improved technologies as well as an increase in
government subsidies, effective since January 2013.
The World Bank is supporting ongoing
projects in Tanzania’s energy sector including power generation and
capacity strengthening in addition to two recent development policy
operations in 2013 and 2014.
Among the recent significant
achievements registered in the sector is the progress of the
gas-to-power programme - a key medium to long-term cost reduction
measure, enabled by the completion of a large gas transmission pipeline,
connecting producing fields in Mtwara and Songo-Songo to Dar es Salaam.
A new 150MW gas power plant (Kinyerezi
I) has been completed while the construction of another 240MW gas power
plant (Kinyerezi II) has also begun.
With the increased gas production and
gas becoming available to all existing and newly commissioned power
plants in Dar es Salaam area, this has eliminated the need for using
more costly liquid fuels in those plants and significantly reduced the
cost of generation
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