Uganda needs more than $900m to fix overstretched power grid, says energy ministry

KAMPALA, Uganda — Uganda will need more than $900 million, about 3.78 trillion shillings, to upgrade its overstretched electricity network and cut the frequent power outages customers have faced since the state took over distribution, a senior energy official has said.

Eng Irene Bateebe, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, disclosed the figure while opening the annual Renewable Energy Conference and Expo at Kampala Serena Hotel.

Bateebe said the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited and the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited would keep investing in the network, focusing on overloaded substations and adding transformers. She said funding had been committed, with UEDCL already holding $176 million for improvements on the distribution side.

The disclosure comes as UEDCL, which took over electricity distribution from Umeme in April 2025, has issued a growing number of planned and unplanned outage notices.

Eng Joselynne Rwabwogo, UEDCL’s acting managing director, blamed most of the outages on worn-out infrastructure that cannot keep pace with rising demand.

Bateebe said electricity demand was growing at about 20% a year, driven largely by industrialisation and the Parish Development Model.

Appearing before Parliament’s Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, Rwabwogo said Umeme invested only 171.5 billion shillings in the final years of its concession, against a projected revenue requirement of 1.275 trillion shillings.

“There has been a significant investment gap over the last four years,” she said.

She told the committee that the number of customers connected to the national grid had risen by about 70% in five years, from 1.6 million in 2021 to 2.78 million, while investment in the infrastructure needed to serve them had lagged behind.

Rwabwogo compared the grid to a road built for a set volume of traffic that becomes congested when more cars join without the road being widened. “Much of our infrastructure was designed to serve considerably lower demand,” she said.

She said more than 12 substations in the fast-growing areas around Kampala were running at 80% or more of their capacity, leaving overstretched equipment more prone to faults and causing longer interruptions in some areas.

“Typically, we should have at least two lines serving a customer such that if one is out of fault, we can easily transfer load,” Rwabwogo said. “But because of the growth, we don’t have two lines anymore in some areas and customers must be off supply as we respond to faults.”

She said UEDCL was implementing a three-year investment plan, and some works had already started after a $135 million investment was approved.

The investment shortfall dates back about four years, to when the government announced it would not renew Umeme’s 20-year concession, which ended in March 2025. A source previously said Umeme struggled to secure new financing from lenders because of the uncertainty over its future.

Umeme invested $272.6 million between 2015 and 2019, but its investment fell by about 30% to $189.4 million from 2020 onward, according to figures cited by New Vision.