New Tanesco plan to ease power woes

Dar es Salaam. State power utility Tanesco is rolling out an ambitious new strategy to improve its response to electrical faults and ease the burden on consumers who at times are forced to go for days without electricity due to minor mishaps.  
Tanesco managing director Felichesmi Mramba told journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the firm was fixing a new and modern system that enables real-time monitoring of power from the point of generation to the end user.
“We are now working on a system which will enable us to monitor power utilisation from a transformer in the street to the metre of an individual customer,” he said.
“Once this system is up and running there will be no need for a customer to call and notify us of power outages in his house, we will know once the problem starts,” he said after showing the journalists some of the installations.
Tanesco has already commissioned the system that will enable its field workers to take appropriate action  to address problems as and when they occur.
This will be good news to power consumers across the country who in many cases of electrical faults have to report and then wait, sometimes unnecessarily long, to have the response team in place.
“For instance, the system will tell us when the temperature of a transformer is alarmingly high. This will enable our technicians to attend to  transformer before it bursts and cause serious problems to many people,” he said.
Mr Mramba noted that the new system would also be used to nab rogue consumers illegally connecting power, and those who tampering with Tanesco installations.
In addition, Tanesco is revamping the distribution system in Dar es Salaam in a mega project that involves the reconstruction of all sub stations and construction of new ones in a bid to address perennial power outages.
There are 32 Tanesco sub stations in Dar es Salaam.
“The construction of some of the stations have been completed and most of them will be ready by April next year,” said Mr Mramba, noting that the refurbished stations have been fitted with modern equipment of top notch technology.
All the sub stations will have multiple power inlets from various sources to enable them receive power when some of the supply lines experience problems.
He noted for instance that the Muhimbili sub station, which used to get power from the Ilala substation only has been remodelled, and now it will receive power supply from Ilala as well as from the City Centre substation.
Speaking at the Muhimbili substation, Tanesco’s  acting distribution and project manager Eng Theodory Mayona said the new arrangement meants that Muhimbili National Hospital, Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institution (MOI), Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Centre (JKCI) and Muhimbili University for Health and Allied Sciences (Muhas) now have reliable power supply at all times. He said there would be other spare outlets to serve customers in surrounding areas.
He told journalists that the construction of the new substation, whose capacity has been tripled to 15MW, has been jointly funded by Japan and Tanzania.
According to Mr Mramba, other stations which are in the programme are Ilala, Mwananyamala, Jangwani Beach, City Centre and Msasani.