This is equivalent to 32.8 per cent of all households of Mainland Tanzania and is an increase from 18 per cent of all households connected to electricity in 2011/12.

 

The Energy Access Situation Report 2016 released earlier this week by the National Bureau of Statistics and the Rural Energy Agency says that urban areas continued to have more access to electricity (65.3 per cent) compared to rural areas (16.9 per cent).

 

The findings of the report show that the country still has a long way to go to increase access to electricity as 67.2 per cent of all households in the country still don't have electricity.

 

"Of the electrified households, 74.9 per cent were electrified with grid, 24.7 per electrified with solar power and the rest (0.3 per cent) electrified using individual electricity generated from sources such as small generators," the report says.

 

Grid electricity was more prevalent in urban areas, where 96.4 per cent of the households with access to electricity were connected to the grid compared to rural areas, where only 34.5 per cent of the households with access to electricity got it from the grid. Only about 3.4 per cent of urban households with access to electricity got it from solar power compared to 64.8 per cent of rural households.

 

The study also found that Dar es Salaam Region continued having the highest proportion of households connected to electricity of any form (75.2 per cent) followed by Njombe Region (50.5 per cent), Kilimanjaro (42.6 per cent) and Katavi (40.0 per cent).

 

Regions, which had proportions of households less than 20 per cent connected to electricity include Rukwa (8.7 per cent), Simiyu (11.5 per cent), Shinyanga (12.8 per cent), Geita (14.0 per cent), Songwe (15.9 per cent) and Kigoma (16.2 per cent).

 

The report also indicates that the percentage of households connected to the national grid differed with regions. Notwithstanding the level of access, some regions had a higher percentage of households connected to the national grid than others. For example, despite having the lowest access to electricity in Mainland Tanzania at 8.7 per cent most of households in Rukwa (91.2 per cent) depended on grid electricity. The reliance on grid, perhaps explains why Rukwa has the lowest level of access to electricity than other regions.

 

Dar es Salaam is the leading region with 99.3 per cent of households connected to grid electricity. Another region with the a high number of grid electricity is Kilimanjaro (88.0 per cent). "Least connected regions to grid electricity were Lindi (24.5 per cent), Njombe (36.6 per cent), Mtwara (38.9 per cent) and Katavi (41.1 per cent)," the report shows.

 

On the contrary, solar power electricity was significant in Lindi (75.5 per cent), Njombe (63.4 per cent), Mtwara (61.1 per cent), Katavi (57.6 per cent) and Ruvuma (54.7 per cent).

Source : allafrica.com