"What we must now do is find a means of generating the remaining 1,290MW so that we can reach that target by end of next year.

 

"If we would have implemented the projects as I had visualized, we would now be quite contented," President Jakaya Kikwete said last week.

 

Presently Tanzania is generating 1,490MW countrywide.

 

He was officially launching the Kinyerezi 1 Gas Power Plant in Dar es Salaam with the capacity to produce 150MW of electricity signifying a new epoch in the sub-sector's development.

 

Kinyerezi I was built by Norway's Jacobsen Elektro.

 

President Kikwete said he plans to meet with all stakeholders involved, including the Treasury and the World Bank to ensure speed in the construction of remaining power plants.

 

It was also revealed by experts at the site that the construction of the remaining gas power plants namely Kinyerezi 2 will start next month while work on Kinyerezi 3 will start in January 2016.

 

The date for Kinyerezi 4 is yet to be fixed. However according to the him, the National Five-Year Development Plan, which ends next year, seeks to reach the 2,780MW target by 2016, noting that the country has at present 1,490MW with a deficit of about 1,290MW to reach the target.

 

Kikwete said with the decline in electricity production in the hydropower plants, his government had embarked on the use of natural gas for production and distribution by constructing the $1.2 billion (Tsh.2.4 trillion) gas pipeline from Mtwara to Dar es Salaam and construction of the gas plants at Kinyerezi in Dar es Salaam.

 

"Soon we will break ground for the construction of iron ore mining and smelting projects at the Mchuchuma Coal and Liganga iron ore mines and set in motion the coal and iron ore to electricity production project.

 

Kiwira Coal mine is also ready but just a small hitch that needs working out," he said.

 

Adding that other alternative sources that are on the ground include Wind Energy in Singida (600km) from Dar es Salaam and Makambako (550km) from Dar es Salaam and a 500MW solar energy project in Shinyanga (750km) from Dar es Salaam.

 

According to Kikwete, Kenya and Zambia want to buy gas from Tanzania to produce electricity in their countries while Rwanda wants 500MW of electricity, Mozambique has requested for 300MW hence directed the power utility firm the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) to fast track production and sell the surplus to neighbouring countries a factor that will also help check idle talk that the firm is ailing.

 

The acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Minerals Engineer Ngosi Mwihava, said in the ten years of President Jakaya Kikwete's rule, there has been an increase of 484.5MW (47%) of electricity.

 

In his comments the Managing Director of Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO), Engineer Felchesmi Mramba said the Kinyerezi 1 Gas Power Plant is part of four other gas to electricity fired power plants in the area with a combined capacity of 1,290MW.

 

According to Engineer Mramba the Kinyerezi I Gas Power Plant was built at a cost of $183 million (Tsh.366 billion) and that the Kinyerezi I Gas Power Plant has four aero-derivate turbines built in the United States by an international leading company in making such machinery using modern technologies, the General Electric (GE) Company.

 

"The LM 6000 turbines have the capacity to produce power using natural gas or jet fuel and that TANESCO decided to use this type of turbines that use two types of energies to produce power to ensure there is an alternative source even at times when there is no gas from Mtwara," he added.

 

He said Kinyerezi 1 Gas Power Plant has started producing power, 70MW that are fed into the national grid and all processes of commissioning the plant are under the GE experts from US.

 

The remaining 80MW will soon be fed into the national grid.

 

Source : allafrica.com