Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan has given the country’s electricity company, Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco), until March next year to overcome the country’s crippling power outages that impact the economy and its citizens.
She said that by March she didn’t want to hear about electricity rationing which was introduced for 10 hours a day across the country due to the crisis in power supply after a breakdown at its Songas plant. The harsh rationing was introduced last week.
The head of the state-owned power company, Gissima Nyamo-Hanga, said the national grid was suffering from broken infrastructure at gas-fired power stations and reduced water levels at hydropower dams.
The capacity will soon get a major boost as a dam in a game park is now almost complete and will have a hydropower plant and solar power (presently a low contributor) that will add to the grid increasingly in the future.
Less than half of all Tanzanians have electricity at home, and with high population growth it will be a challenge to keep up with soaring demand.
Energy and Minerals Minister William Ngeleja said measures had been taken to mitigate the effects of a loss of 100MW from the national grid following the breakdown at its Songas plant.
He added that US-based General Electric Company (GEC) experts had arrived in the country to examine three turbines that had failed earlier this week.
Tanzania's total power installed capacity is 1 605.86MW (2021). Its electricity generation comes mostly from natural gas (48%) followed by hydropower (31%), fossil fuels (18%), solar (1%), and biofuels (1%). Tanzania also imports power from Uganda (10MW), Zambia (5MW), and Kenya (1MW).
