DAM CONFERENCE TESTAMENT TO HOW FAR WE HAVE COME

At the beginning of the century, we were grappling with daily loadshedding, which was only just being alleviated by contracting emergency power suppliers, Aggreko.

Our dams Kiira and Nalubale, with total generation capacity of 380 MW, were woefully inadequate to match peak time demand.

The commissioning of Bujagali in 2012 gave us a much-needed sigh of relief and the hope that the bad old days are good as gone.

We have come a long way from those days of day long load shedding to a situation where if power supply is off for 30 minutes it can become a neighbourhood crisis. A case of familiarity breeds contempt?

"They say the prophet is not appreciated in their own land, which makes next week’s “Water Storage and Hydropower Development for Africa” a validation of how far we have come since 2000...

The conference, the fourth of its kind on the continent by the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) will see about 500 delegates trooping to Uganda to not only deliberate on the future of large dams on the continent but take stock of Uganda’s progress in generating power using hydroelectric power.

Only Ethiopia, Morocco and Namibia have hosted the African edition of the ICOLD event.

In a time where climate change issues are front and center of every it helps too that almost all our power is generated using renewable energy means.

The conference coming to our shores is also testament to how central to the industry Uganda Electricity Generation company Ltd (UEGCL) has become to the energy value chain in Uganda.

UEGCL is now the largest power generator in Uganda with its control of the Namanve Thermal Power Plant, Isimba dam, The Kiira-Nalubaale dam complex which they only took over from South African power company Eskom earlier this year. It is due to take over 600MW Karuma dam, whose three of six turbines are already feeding power onto the grid.

"The conference comes at a particularly interesting juncture in our electricity story when many of the concessions in generation and distribution are reverting to the public sector and Uganda may in future serves as a case study of how to liberalise then deliberalise the power sector, for better or for worse...

But we are jumping the gun.

Next weeks, conference will bring together not only dam operators but also planners, designers, contractors, financiers and many other players in the sector. It will be a godsend opportunity to expose our industry to all these players and given that we have not maximized our potential on power generation, we may make very interesting connections that well serve as well in our ambition to generate beyond 10,000 MW by 2040.

Currently the main challenge facing generators in Uganda is how to sell power to the grid for not more than US5cents and still ensure long term viability of plants and utilities. During the conference we may very well learn from other operators from the continent and further afield how we may hack this question.

The US5cents target has been set by President Yoweri Museveni as a prerequisite to spurring the industrialization this country badly needs to add value to our raw materials and to increase job opportunities.

The conference is also a unique tourism opportunity for the country. Over the week or so they are here they will not only be jostling of the minds, but delegates will drive out to see our various dams, driving through the scenic beauty of our countryside to get there.

Meetings are a useful source of tourists. We have not been as consistently deliberate about MICE (Meetings Incentives Conferences & Exhibitions) but the potential is self-evident. Apart from room and board if each of the 500 attendants spent $200 during the week that would be $100,000 into the greater Kampala economy. And if we can wow them with our hospitality and the general experience this $200 may be a gross understatement. Better still we would have made ambassadors of the delegates to their respective countries, a better tourist attractor than any flashy website or high-sounding official...

Electricity generation is not a sexy subject, it doesn’t even generate much anger nowadays, because we have more than enough to consume. But no country has any achieved any serious development without sorting out the power issue and as such even if they work quietly in the background, power generators and UEGCL in particular play a central role in the economy.

Attracting a high-powered conference as next week’s is only icing on the cake.