Why Uganda was voted to Host the Secretariat of IRB of the Eastern Africa Power Pool

Uganda has been voted to host the Secretariat of Independent Regulatory Board (IRB) of the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP) at the IRB board meeting held in Kigali ,Rwanda on Thursday.

According to the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) a government agency that regulates, licenses, and supervises the generation, transmission, distribution, sale, export, and importation of electrical energy, after a successful bid was accepted, the IRB secretariat will be housed at the old ERA House in the Uganda’s Capital Kampala.

‘’Hosting the IRB presents opportunities for Uganda to develop expertise in regional power trading’’, an official from ERA said shortly after the Kigali meeting.

Late last month, Sarah Wasagali, the Board Chairperson of Electricity Regulatory Authority said Uganda was bidding to host the IRB secretariat given its outstanding status in the Energy Sector.

The (EAPP is a collaborative effort by eleven countries in Eastern Africa to interconnect their electricity grids and take advantage of excess capacity within the network and facilitate trade of electric power between the members.

In February 2005, seven countries in the Eastern African region came together because they saw mutual benefit in having one power pool. The original countries were Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Sudan. Later, Tanzania (2010), Libya (2011), Djibouti and Uganda (2012) joined the pool.

The objectives of the Eastern Africa Power Pool include; the reduction of power costs within the region, facilitation of power trade between the members, increasing energy availability to citizens of member countries and increasing the grid security of the member countries.

As a prerequisite to the success of these efforts, power grid interconnections between the member countries need to be established.

Some of the transactions among EAPP member states include the following: In July 2022, Kenya signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with Ethiopia, where the latter will sell 200 MW of electric power to the former starting 1 November 2022 for the first three years. Thereafter the amount sold will increase to 400 MW for the remaining 22 year of the contract.

EAPP’s Vision is “To optimize the usage of clean energy resources available in the region to benefit the region’s society with reduced cost of electricity production and increased rate of access to electrify Eastern Africa”.

The EAPP’s undertakings are; To secure power supply for the region’s countries; Optimize the usage of energy resources available in the region by working out regional investment scheme in power generation, transmission, and distribution taking into account the environmental effects; To increase power supply in the region in order to increase the access rate of the population to electricity in Eastern Africa; To reduce the electricity production cost in the region by using power system interconnection and increase power exchange between countries; To provide efficient coordination between various initiatives taken in the field of power production, transmission as well as exchange in the region; To create in the framework of the new Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), a conducive environment for investment in order to facilitate the integration of projects financing in the fields of power generation and transmission in the region and ; Facilitate in the long-term development of the Electricity Market in the region.