SINGIDA Wind Power project, which is the first wind farm in Tanzania is expected to generate power from May next year after negotiations for power purchase agreement between the developer and the government are concluded.
The Managing Director of Six Telecoms,
which is among partners to the project, Rashid Shamte told reporters in
Dar es Salaam yesterday that the PPA negotiations with TANESCO, Ministry
of Energy and Minerals and Attorney General office were at advanced
stage and would be concluded by April next year.
"By April or May we will finalise the
negotiation and begin to generate power to the national grid. We're at
very advanced stages," he said on the sidelines of the two-day Africa
Energy Forum: Off the Grid summit.
The US$300 million Singida Wind Farm, is
a potential 100 megawatts (130,000 hp) wind-powered electricity power
station developed by Wind Power East Africa Limited in Singida Region.
It is expected to generate up to 100 megawatts of electricity that will
be sold to TANESCO for integration into the national power grid.
The power station is owned by a
consortium that consists of Six Telecoms, a Tanzanian company, Aldwych
International Limited of the United Kingdom, and the International
Finance Corporation, based in Washington, D.C. Wind East Africa Limited
is the special purpose vehicle formed by the consortium to develop, own,
and operate the power station.
Mr Shamte said they would begin power
generation but it would take 22 months to reach maximum capacity of 100
megawatts. He said more than 250 families would be relocated to pave the
way for construction of the project and they were currently in
negotiations with them, the regional authority and the ministry of
energy and minerals to make sure the relocation would be done in the
best way possible.
He said they were committed to build houses to each family that will be relocated on top of compensation in monetary terms.
Tanzania is among East African countries
that have adopted renewable energy technologies including solar,
geothermal and wind power as it implements 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 percent by 2033.
The National Rural Electrification
Programme (2013–2022) under which the policy is implemented, includes
both on-grid and off-grid solutions.
Analysts say with demand for electricity
growing nearly 15 percent per year, and country’s vast water and gas
reserves continue to provide the bulk of power, the country seeks to
wean its electricity away from aging, unreliable hydropower plants. It
is expected that the wind farm in Singida will add much-needed power to
the national grid, as well as bring investment and economic
opportunities to the country
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