A total of 125,744 people were connected to the national power grid for the 11 months to November 2021, a report released by power distributor Umeme shows.
This is more than double the 57,000 that were completed in 2020.
Of the total connections, 53,562 were fully funded by customers and the balance through the government subsidization programme.
Celestine Babungi, the Umeme executive director, said they also connected 98 industrial customers and 851 commercial SME customers over the period.
The total customer base stands at 1.6 million, reflecting a 9% growth compared to 2020.
“We continue to engage with the Government to avail funding for the pending 217,000 applications for connection to the grid, as outlined in the Electricity Connections Policy,” he said on Tuesday, 21 December 2021.
Mr Babungi said in 2021, Umeme registered a 10% growth in electricity demand compared to the 0.6% of 2020. The industrial category is growing at 11%, commercial SMEs at 12% and domestic at 6.3%.
For the ten months to October 2021, 2,900GWh were sold compared to 2,645 for the same period in 2020.
“This continued growth has a positive impact on further investments in the electricity industry and underlying real reduction in electricity tariffs,” Mr Babungi said.
He said some of the key capital investment projects embarked on during 2021 include Investment in the distribution network to facilitate the growth in demand expected in 2022, connection of at least 317,282 new customers to the grid subject to availability of funding from the Government and partners per the Electricity Connections Policy targets.
The others are improvement in operational efficiency through reducing energy losses to 14% from current 17.5% and achieving a revenue collection rate of 99.8%.
Others include investments in technology to automate service delivery and internal processes, improve visibility and the performance of network assets and the replacement of the billing and vending systems. Supply reliability improvements through feeder refurbishments and pole replacements for the worst performing feeders.