Nankabirwa assures that Isimba dam’s full capacity will be restored soon

The minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Ruth Nankabirwa has said engineers at Isimba dam have managed to restore four turbines that had experienced a breakdown, assuring the country that the plant will soon be fully restored.

"I visited Isimba dam to see for myself the status of the dam and I can officially confirm that Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL) operations and maintenance team safely restored a second unit (Unit 4) at the plant. And they are currently dispatching 76MW to UETCL," said Nankabirwa.

Nankabirwa inspected the dam to assess the progress of restoration following the shutdown recently which raised public concern.

The 183MW Isimba hydropower power plant experienced a shut down on August 8 2022 following flooding of the power house that houses generators and turbines.

This led to power outages in the country for the past one week.

Last week, Nankabirwa assured the country that the closure of Isimba Dam and the importation of power from Kenya will not lead to an increase of power tariffs.

She stressed that appropriate measures are being undertaken to restore power production as soon as possible.

"So, to all Ugandans, the issue of load shedding because of what happened here at Isimba should not be something to be entertained now because we are now producing. And the issue of importation of power from Kenya. It was a technical problem because we don’t import power," she said.

Nankabirwa said UETCL suppressed exportation of power to Kenya after the technical hitch but the exportation had resumed.

"That suppression lasted 3 days and now we’re back to exporting 50 to 60MW to Kenya," she said.

Uganda’s current electricity generation capacity stands at about 1,250Megawatts but consumption stands at slightly above 650 megawatts during peak hours, creating a surplus of half of what is generated.

The amount of electricity produced in Uganda is expected to increase to over 2,000MW by the end of 2022 with the addition of Karuma dam which produces 600MW, Kikagati (16MW) and Nyamagasani I (15MW) as well as other small hydro power plants.